


the sword of damocles

by penhaligon



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 127,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25410073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon
Summary: Martin interrupts Jonah's ritual. That doesn't mean their problems are solved.(In which the apocalypse is averted, and things proceed to go sideways.)
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 280
Kudos: 301





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure there are a ton of 'what if the MAG 160 ritual was interrupted?' fics out there, but I'm very interested in the potential fallout and drama of that, so... here we go. General content warnings for this fic include: canon-typical trauma conga line, and Jon-typical suicidal ideation, disregard for personal well-being, and self-harm.
> 
> This is not quite a happily ever after fix-it, but no tagged characters will die, and I would never permanently separate Jon and Martin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

Martin was awake. He'd been awake yesterday evening and most of the night, only dozing off in brief, fitful bursts that were yanked out from under his feet by surges of gasping fear. His imagination fought hard against sleep, and his anxious thoughts would coalesce into new and frightening possibilities every time he drifted to the cusp of waking and dreaming. He'd slam into wakefulness a few minutes later, expecting the end of the world, expecting someone or something to have found them, expecting the man in his arms to be _gone_.

But Jon was still there, uneasy even in the depths between unconsciousness and sleep. They were alone. The world kept turning.

It would have been better to give up and get up and try to do something, but Martin didn't want to let go of Jon. It made sense, in the way that the groggy unreality of nighttime made absurdity into profundity: as long as Martin kept his arms around Jon, nothing worse would happen. No world-ending statements. No watching eyes. No fog.

That train of thought lasted as long as it took for the blackness behind the curtains to lighten into a dull gray, for the first notes of birdsong to warble somewhere outside the window and remind Martin that Jon's steady breathing and his own erratic gulps of air weren't the only sounds in the world. By then, he must have caught just enough sleep in his fits of dozing, because he started to think, _really_ think, and it occurred to him that they had to deal with this.

Martin's eyes traced the contours of Jon's face in the gray light, following deep lines that never disappeared even in sleep, carved out by inescapable nightmares. Were there any tonight? Martin couldn't tell, with how still Jon was. He could barely see the scars, and he couldn't see the bruises and scratches at all. Maybe they'd healed already, and he hoped that they had, because he really didn't want to see those.

He _really_ didn't want to deal with this.

Martin didn't let go of Jon, even when he found himself in want of his phone or at least a pen and paper. He didn't want to run the risk of waking Jon, and he still wasn't keen on letting go. He knew it was stupid, but it felt better, to have Jon here in his hold. As if Martin could protect him that way.

That was the first order of business, then, and maybe it was better not to write anything down in an app or on a piece of paper, as if doing so would let prying eyes see. So Martin lay there in bed with Jon wrapped in his arms, with his tired thoughts determined to slog forward, because they needed a plan, and he needed to start compartmentalizing, before he lost his grip on the fragile calm that had only been granted to him by immense weariness.

So: how safe were they, here in Daisy's safe house? Not safe enough to keep Elias-- to keep Jonah Magnus out, apparently. Not safe enough that Jon's _food source_ could be trusted. So, first thing to do this morning after breakfast: check and double check every statement.

And so Martin's thoughts carried him through the early morning, considering every option and possibility that came to mind and poking them over and over again to check for holes. It lasted as long as it took for the light filtering through the curtains to evolve into a soft gold, and then Jon stirred, driving every other thought out of Martin's head.

It was later than Jon usually slept. His eyes flicked sluggishly open, and he only looked vaguely confused, in one brief moment of freedom from memory and burden. Martin wanted to live in that moment, to take it and mold it into an eternity, to lay here with nothing more pressing than admiring the way the chilly gold of morning looked on Jon's skin, on the flecks of gray in his undone hair. But realization crashed down hard in the next moment, and Jon's face crumpled. His body tensed in Martin's grip, like an animal about to bolt.

"Hey," Martin said, as reassuring as he could. He shifted so that he could prop himself up on an elbow and kept his free hand resting against Jon: an offer, a comfort, a way to ground himself. "It's okay. You're okay."

In the morning light, he could see the last remnants of bruises and scratches on Jon's arms and face and neck. Some were self-inflicted, and a few were from Martin, and all of them were almost gone. The reinflamed burn on Jon's right hand had been bandaged -- one of the first things that Martin had done before stumbling early and mindlessly into bed -- and Martin could see Jon clenching the hand at his side. Somehow, he didn't think that injury would heal as fast. It had to hurt, and Martin wanted to ask Jon to stop, but he didn't.

He needed to hear Jon say something first. Anything that wasn't yesterday's _statement_.

"How are you feeling?" Martin ventured.

Jon's face twitched in something that might have been misery and might have been a sick kind of mirth. His unburned hand rose up to ghost over his throat. He opened his mouth cautiously, taking a deep, uncertain breath, and Martin went numb with the sudden fear that it hadn't worked. That what left Jon's mouth would be more of the same, like when Martin had wrenched the physical statement away and Jon had suddenly been able to move... and then had _kept speaking,_ helplessly compelled and tearing at his own throat even as he fought Martin.

Martin had followed his instincts and destroyed the statement in a blind panic, and at the time, it seemed to have freed Jon -- if slumping into unconsciousness after a struggle and a near-hysterical stream of apologies could be called that. As Martin had set the statement alight, something had _clicked_ and settled with absolute certainty, somewhere at the back of his skull and deep in his gut. But...

"Fine," Jon croaked.

Jesus Christ. Well, at least one thing was completely the same. "Mm," Martin said, trying to keep his voice light and calm despite the shaky relief tingling down to the tips of his fingers. "Right. Could you get a little more specific?"

But the price had been Jon dropping like a stone as the statement caught fire, had been insensible terror at the prospect of watching Jon die. As it turned out, it had gone no further than the scar on Jon's hand. As if an awful wound like that was something to be relieved about.

"What do you want me to say, Martin?" Jon rasped. Martin didn't know if it had been the statement itself or the screaming that had Jon's voice so raw now, but it hurt to hear, even amid Martin's sheer, dizzying joy at the fact that that Jon sounded so very Jon-like. Which meant that Jon's defensiveness was immediate and visceral and cut the situation down to the bone. "I'm not fine? I'm a fucking _puppet_ for Jonah Magnus to use, to end the world as he pleases?"

Martin took a deep, steadying breath, calling on as much patience as his brittle nerves and twisting stomach could muster. He'd missed the beginning of the statement, but he'd pieced together enough, from the words that he'd heard tumbling out of Jon's mouth. Still, it was another thing entirely, to hear it said so plainly, and he reminded himself that he'd be biting heads off too, in Jon's position. "I just need to know if there's something we should be worrying about right this second," Martin said, clipped.

Jon exhaled and sank a little further into the pillows, but he angled closer to Martin as he did so, and the uncomfortable clenching in Martin's stomach eased somewhat. "No," Jon said, quiet and hoarse and apologetic. "No, I don't think so."

"Good," Martin said. Jon was not always forthcoming about his well-being, to put it mildly, but he was also a very bad liar, and there was no lie in the words, as far as Martin could tell. "Please let me know if that changes?"

Jon looked like he was trying to will the mattress and the pillows to swallow him whole, maybe, but he nodded.

Martin figured that was all he'd be getting out of Jon right now, so he pushed himself up and off the bed, even though the very last thing he wanted to do was remove himself from Jon's side. "We're going talk about it," he said, still very calm and brisk, because he could see the next few steps sketched out in his mind and the possibilities beyond that. As long as he had that in place, he could keep a handle on the situation. He could keep it together. "But I'll make us breakfast first. You might want to check on your hand too. Or I could do it, if..."

"... You don't need to..." Jon said, overlapping, but he didn't finish the sentence as Martin fell silent.

Jon's face twisted up again, like something was trying to break free, but he mastered it, just barely, as he pushed himself up. His hands twitched together nervously, until he remembered that one of them hurt and let it fall by the wayside.

"Martin, I'm-- I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to..." Jon faltered and tried again, painstaking and hesitant and shying away from spitting it out. "Thank you. For..."

 _I'm sorry you had to smother me half to death,_ Martin finished silently, nausea pushing up against the back of his throat. It was a small bed, but Jon made it look otherwise, as he folded his legs under him and sat there, hunched and miserable with what had become the literal weight of the world. Jon was small compared to him, Martin thought. Easy enough to overpower, even with the unnatural drive and strength that had seized him and kept him fighting for the statement until the end. _Thank you for setting my hand on fire._

Get them both fed. Check on the burn. Check on the statements. Convince Jon of some dubious options. It was a reassuringly simple list to follow, for now, and Martin was very, very good at putting his head down and getting things done. All he had to do was keep it together, and yet his hands had started trembling and his throat was closing. His eyes burned.

"Stop," Martin said, and he hated that his voice broke in that moment. Hated how angry he sounded, in between the cracks. "Stop apologizing. Don't _thank_ me for..."

But he choked on the words, and next thing he knew, he was on the ground. He didn't quite remember sitting, and then Jon was in front of him, Jon was practically climbing into his lap, Jon had put scratchy bandage and pockmarked skin on either side of Martin's face. Time skipped around like it did in the Lonely, dreamy and unreal, and a dull fear blossomed in the pit of Martin's stomach, but Jon's voice was there, the sweep of a lighthouse beam through fog.

"Martin," Jon said, his voice as firm as his hands against Martin's skin. "It's alright. I'm alright. You saved me." Martin felt the shaky inhale tremble through Jon's hands, heard it grate through his wrecked throat. "I think you saved the world."

For now, he didn't say, but the thought had Martin rocking forward, throwing his arms around Jon with the same delirious notion that doing so would somehow protect them both. Even in his panic, he was gentle, cautious, because he couldn't get yesterday out of his head. Couldn't stop feeling Jon pinned beneath him, couldn't stop seeing something that seemed more Archivist than Jon, couldn't stop hearing the statement interrupted by a few choked and desperately fought-for apologies and his own in answer, and the _screams_...

They stayed like that for a little while, until Martin could breathe and think a little more normally. "I don't want to do that again, Jon," he said, desperately small.

"I know," Jon said into his shoulder, and he didn't offer up any false promises with it. Martin didn't know whether to be grateful for that or not.

"I'm sorry," Martin added, because he couldn't help it.

Jon sighed into him, a melancholy sandpaper sound. He had buried himself into Martin's feather-light hold, as if trying to disappear into its safety, and it made Martin a little less hesitant about tightening his grip. "Don't be," Jon said. "Why don't we agree to a moratorium on apologies?"

That was probably for the best, because if Martin had to hear Jon apologize for any of it one more time, he'd lose his grip on _something_.

He nodded, and Jon peeled himself away, even though Martin thought it would be nice if they stayed like that for the rest of their lives. Jon's eyes narrowed as he leaned back on his heels and looked Martin up and down. "Did you get any sleep?"

"A little?" Martin said, not very convincingly.

Jon gave him a _look_ , which was so hypocritical that Martin felt remarkably more grounded in his mild indignation. As if Jon, of all people, had a right to judge on _that_ front. "Don't worry about breakfast," Jon said. "I'll get it. You--"

"Jon," Martin interrupted. "You have one working hand."

Jon deflated with another sigh, the raspy rattling of his breath more petulant this time, and he sat back against the bed. "Your point is?"

He was back to being annoying, which was reassuring, to say the least. Martin gazed at Jon, who had his back to the bed frame and his legs still tangled with Martin's and his brows furrowed at a peevish angle, and he felt his chest swell with something nameless and fond and so very afraid.

What if he hadn't forgotten his phone? What if he hadn't wanted it to take pictures of the stupid cows? What if he hadn't come back in time? What would he _do_ if Jon--?

Martin stopped himself and took a deep breath, in and out. They were fine, for now. He knew what to do, for now. "My point," Martin said, more calmly than he felt, and he chose his words very deliberately, so that Jon would have no choice but to agree, "is that it would make me feel better if you took care of that first."

* * *

Jon did so as quickly as he could, sequestered in the toilet while Martin was in the kitchen. Part of it was simply a strong desire not to let Martin out of his sight for too long, and part of it was so that Martin didn't have to see the burn. It was in no way his fault, and Jon would suffer a hundred more like it, if it meant never feeling his throat and his body act on someone else's accord like that again. But the fact remained that Martin had been forced to burn the statement to a crisp and thus Jon's hand with it, and a moratorium on needless apologies didn't mean that Jon wouldn't see it in Martin's eyes.

The hand print scar was no longer a scar, for the most part. It was nearly as fresh and extensive as the day he'd gotten it, the skin horribly blistered and red, and the hastiness with which Jon peeled the gauze off and reapplied antibiotic and aloe only made it hurt more. But he didn't slow down or take his time. Pain cut through thinking and ruminating and dwelling. It kept him in the moment, concentrated on the hideous sensation of stinging raw skin and the deep throbbing that lanced up his arm with every movement. It even made him forget how much his throat hurt.

The bandage job he'd woken up with had been careful and done with love. This one was far more utilitarian and clumsy, but Jon was more concerned with seeing it done. As much as he might have welcomed the stinging, the sight of the burn and the feeling of cream against ruined skin had him growing more and more nauseous, and he was glad to get it under gauze as soon as possible.

In the mirror, he could hardly see the marks he'd left on his own skin, those he remembered inflicting only vaguely and only after he'd been half-free but unable to do more than claw at himself, when something else hadn't been making him claw at Martin. There were only dull signs left on his throat and around his mouth, fast fading. But his hand hadn't healed at all, in the interim. He _knew_ that, despite the fact that he hadn't been nearly coherent enough to register the extent of the damage yesterday.

Jon didn't mean to end up obsessively checking his other scars. He half-expected the one at his throat to bleed when he touched it, because that was about as bad as the inside felt, but it was old and stiff and normal, just like the worm scars and the scar on his shoulder. So why the hand? Because fire had been involved? Because it was a _mark_? Because--

"How'd it look?" Martin asked.

Jon flinched, pulling away from the mirror, and his hand twinged like a plucked chord. Martin hovered in the doorway, his face drawn and his color off and his eyes intent and worried. Jon wanted to fix it, to restore the smiles and lightness and warmth that had been returning to Martin's face. He didn't know how.

 _Better,_ Jon almost said, just to try, but it didn't quite leave his mouth. Martin wouldn't believe him anyway, and Jon wasn't entirely unaware of his own inability to come across as convincing. "The same."

Martin's mouth thinned a little, and Jon almost expected him to insist on seeing it himself. Worry ran off of Martin like a thin, steady sheet of pouring water, and some part of Jon considered it idly, like the tangible sense of fear was merely an option in a buffet, was something to _study_. The rest of him balked at the idea. "Okay," was all that Martin said, however. "Eggs are ready."

A nearby farmer had apparently found them pitiable enough to foist fresh eggs on them for free. What would have happened to her, if--? "That was quick," Jon said absently, refusing to follow that train of thought any further.

"Not really," Martin said with a frown.

How long had Jon stood there poking at pockmarks, then? Martin was wondering a similar thing, but it wasn't any preternatural insight that informed Jon. It was clear enough in the way that Martin's eyes shifted, staring and assessing. It made Jon's hand ache even more, as tension drew his body tight.

It wasn't like he was self-conscious about it. Not here, at least, not with Martin. It was just... what it meant, what the tableau etched into his body _meant_. It made him want to tear at his own skin and peel each scar away, and then keep digging for the ones that weren't visible. It made his aching throat close, like he was choking on the fear of it all, the words torn out of an unwilling mouth, and the dirt in his lungs, and--

"Jon?" Martin asked, soft.

Jon focused on the raw twinging of his hand, present and immediate and only slightly dulled by the cream. "This was the only thing that..." he forced the words out, as steadily as he could, and lifted his hand, then regretted the motion, "reacted. I checked."

"That's..." Martin said, uncertain, grasping at anything like a victory, "that's good, right?"

Jon didn't know and could barely even begin to hazard a guess. He didn't care for being inundated with knowledge against his will, but he liked the opposite even less. "I hope so," he said and had to swallow to get it out.

Martin stepped forward into the room and gently lay his fingers against the arm attached to Jon's burned hand. "Do we have enough painkillers?"

It was odd, how the simplest things could give rise to a rush of affection, a much more gentle tide ready to drown him in it. Martin was always worrying. Always, even when Jon didn't deserve it. Even when an all-too-large part of him wanted to take that worry and examine it piece by invasive piece, and he quashed that urge, viciously, guiltily. Even when it was undeserved indeed.

Jon wanted to smooth out the frown on Martin's face, tuck the worry away somewhere so that Martin could rest easy, for once. Where Jon couldn't possibly indulge in something as grotesque as _wanting_ it. But all Jon was able to offer, quiet and defeated with the acrid taste of knowing coating his mouth, was, "I don't think they'll help."

Martin wanted to argue, a kneejerk thing. Jon could see that too. But Martin seemed to realize what Jon meant, that it wasn't stubborn refusal or denial. Martin's other hand found Jon's undamaged one, tangling their fingers together. "Are you sure?"

Jon nodded, even though it made Martin's face fall, then said, "I love you."

He'd been trying to get _better_ about expressing certain thoughts and feelings aloud. Usually it led to him blurting them out at the tail end of a complex chain of thought that had not been expressed aloud with it, thus giving the impression that it came out of nowhere. Martin, as always, turned a little red, but a small smile crept into the edges of his mouth, and most of the frown disappeared. Ah. That was the trick, then.

"Okay?" Martin said. "Romanticism isn't going to distract me from the fact that you're in pain, you know."

"That wasn't my intent," Jon said, "but I can take it back, if it isn't working."

Martin tilted his head questioningly, and then followed the invitation and answered with his mouth on Jon's, which was plenty distracting. Jon was hyper-aware of the ache in his hand, in his throat, of Martin's too-delicate and skittish hold on him, of the many, many, many problems that now hovered over them like a dark cloud fit to burst. He wasn't certain of what to do with his hands when they kissed now, when one hand was no longer in working order. He had been so very _wrong_ , about everything, and Jonah's mocking words still rang in his ears, in his own voice, lodged under the surface of his body, and it was enough to want to rip his own skin off.

But it all seemed so very far away, for a moment.

"Love you," Martin murmured, when he broke the kiss. "Let's eat, yeah?"

Jon wasn't particularly hungry, but he agreed and let himself be led to the kitchen. It was how Martin knew how to fix things, even if they couldn't be fixed, and Jon could, at the very least, give him that for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Mention of self-harm/self-inflicted injuries.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

Martin had cleaned up the sitting room yesterday, after he'd taken care of Jon's hand, readjusting furniture that had been knocked askew. He hadn't been able to stand the thought of leaving the ashes of that _thing_ in the fireplace, and so he'd swept it all up and tossed it outside, along with the smoking remains of the tape in the recorder.

But what if there hadn't been a fireplace? What if he hadn't insisted on keeping it stocked with wood and lit because it was _quaint,_ and because he was cold now, more often than not, and because Jon was too thin and got cold easily even if he never said anything about it, and Martin wanted to make sure that he was warm? Martin hadn't known where Jon kept his lighter, but he'd gone and found it after carrying Jon to the bedroom, and he'd stuck it in his own pockets.

He'd give it back in a bit. When he was well and truly calm.

When Martin sat Jon down on the ratty sofa with tea firmly in undamaged hand, the fireplace crackled again, and Martin experienced a brief rush of regret over it, like the presence of flames might somehow upset Jon. But Jon didn't seem to notice. He was spacey, and increasingly so, hardly saying a word over breakfast, eyes distant, frown etched into his face like it had always been there. Picking at the eggs, and Martin had nearly swallowed his tongue to keep himself from asking Jon to eat more.

Martin didn't want to ask him to talk about it and relive it. But he needed to know. He needed to know the full context so that they could do something about it.

So he asked and he listened, sat uneasily in the equally ratty armchair across from the sofa, because he was getting a feel for when Jon needed space. A tape recorder whirred softly on the coffee table between them, and the humming of the machine was comforting and familiar, above the low snapping of flames and the distant rumble of the generator. It kept Martin's hands steady as Jon spoke, halting and raw.

But at some point, Martin found himself on his feet, pacing back and forth and trying not to be frantic about it. It was usually Jon who moved with occasionally manic energy, utterly immune to the concept of staying still when he wasn't reading statements, while Martin had gotten intimately familiar, lately, with stillness and quiet and folding into one's surroundings.

But Jon was very still. He sat on the sofa with his legs wrapped up in a similarly ratty blanket that Martin hadn't given him much choice but to accept, his undamaged hand tight around the mug of honeyed tea. He hadn't bothered to put his hair up, and it only belatedly occurred to Martin that such a thing might require help, with a bandaged hand.

Jon's face was rigid, carefully manufactured blankness warring with revulsion, and he spoke like he was trying to keep the eggs down. He stared past Martin, his gaze fixed unseeing and hollow on the front door. He knew the contents of yesterday's statement, beginning to end, even though he hadn't quite been able to finish speaking it aloud. Martin really had come back just in time, and maybe it was that revelation that had him surging to his feet and tearing a path into the floor.

A few sentences more, and--

"Okay," Martin said, when Jon finally lapsed into silence, making his way from fireplace to opposite wall. "Okay. Okay."

He felt _sick_. He'd been there the entire time, more or less, and yet he hadn't seen it. Hadn't put the pieces together. He hadn't been there _enough_ , because Jon had gotten half of these marks in situations that he should never have faced alone. And god, the _Lonely_... 

"Okay!" Martin said, his voice rising in a way that he hoped wasn't hysterical. He wanted to break something. Preferably Jonah Magnus's fucking neck. "First of all, Jon, if you try to blame yourself for this, I will yell at you. Consider that a warning."

Something twitched up at the corners of Jon's mouth, a sliver breaking through his hollow-eyed mask. Good.

"Because it sounds to me like this is all someone else's fault," Martin continued, ambling back towards the fireplace, "and I'll get to that, but secondly, I'm-- I know we said no apologies, and this isn't an apology, exactly, but the other meaning for it? I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. This is..." But there really was nothing he _could_ say, no words to sum it up, even though condensing raw feeling into meaningful sound was supposed to be a hobby of his.

"Martin," Jon said, raspy and low. He'd sat up a little straighter, and the air felt heavy in a nebulous, indescribable way. "It isn't your fault."

Martin let out a hard breath through his nose. The Lonely. He'd been _bait_ , to hurt Jon like this, to... _complete_ a collection. And he'd really thought that he'd been doing something, at the time. Protecting Jon, holding him at arm's length for his own good. How monumentally stupid.

Martin was going to do a lot more than break Elias's neck, actually.

"I know, I just--" Martin stopped. "Did you, um... did you _know_ what I was thinking about?"

Jon's hand convulsed around the mug. "I didn't..." he said, curling back into the sofa. "I didn't mean to. I wasn't thinking, it just..." he grimaced, "happened."

"It's fine," Martin said, a little too quick, because the last thing he wanted was Jon shrinking away from him right now. "Just, I'd appreciate it if you... tried not to do that?"

Jon nodded, just as quick. He looked too strung out and forlorn for someone who could theoretically end the world.

"Okay," Martin said again, like he could speak things into being okay through sheer willpower alone. "So... let's start with what we need to do right now." Basic needs. The hierarchy thing. Something about food and safety, and he could knock two things out with one task, there. "I'll check the other statements, make sure they're not... the same." He'd glanced at them earlier this morning, to make sure he had the count right, but he'd pore over every word before he let them anywhere near Jon.

Jon's face twitched again. For a second, Martin feared that breakfast really would be coming up.

Yeah. Yeah, Martin would probably be revolted at the idea of statements too, after yesterday. But Jon needed those. Martin wasn't stupid, and it wasn't withdrawal. He'd had a chance to really observe, over these past few weeks, what he should have been doing all along. He'd seen how Jon had slowly deteriorated, in the time between taking a statement from Peter Lukas and the arrival of Basira's shipment. Martin had seen that sort of deterioration before, when Mum had found it more and more difficult to eat.

"I've been thinking," Martin continued, "and if they're not... _viable_ , well, there's a lot that I've been through, fear-wise, that you weren't there for." He winced himself to a halt and dug his fingers into the back of the armchair. Oh, he was off to a _great_ start. "I don't blame you for that, I mean! It's just... it should work, right? If you need something."

Jon's confusion bled away into comprehension, and he swallowed. The mug trembled, and Jon leaned forward and set it down on the coffee table with the hard clack of ceramic against wood. Martin wasn't sure if that was supposed to sting or not.

"I'm not--" Jon said, his ragged voice hard.

"You _can't_ starve yourself," Martin said, even harder. "Elia-- Jonah Magnus is trying to, to end the world, and we need to be functional to deal with that, okay? Look," he circled the armchair and collapsed into it, before his shaky legs could betray him first, "you can go about two and a half weeks before a live statement really starts to wear off, yeah? And a bit longer, if you just... weather it. And the old statements, you told me they can go a day or so, right? And either the statements are safe, or they're not, and I don't know how safe it'll be to get more, at this point. But between the statements we've got and me, what I've got, if we manage it carefully, we can go a few months without having to worry. Even longer if we use both. And a lot can happen in a few months."

Jon looked astonished, face slack and mouth hanging slightly open. It took him a moment to gather himself, his mouth working soundlessly before he managed to croak out a response. "You've... put a lot of thought into this."

"Yeah," Martin said. "And it's not like I get the dreams, so... it'll be fine."

Jon shifted under the blanket, as if making himself smaller. "You don't like the statements," he said dumbly.

"I don't like any of this, Jon!" Martin said, and it didn't leave him very calmly. "But this is what we've got. The hand we've been dealt and all that."

Jon stared at him, and Martin wasn't entirely sure if he had blinked recently. It was a little unnerving, being subjected to that scrutiny. Jon scratched absently at his arm, tension slowly working its way into his shoulders again, and then his eyes slid closed. "It's..." he said, hollow. "Martin, it's _me_. I'm... the problem is me. I might as well be a time bomb."

Martin didn't want to know what he was getting at. He didn't want to hear the rest, and his voice was flat when he asked, "What are you saying?"

Jon let out a slow breath, as the lines of his face hardened. "Maybe it would be better to let myself starve."

Martin went numb. His head ached with it, with a rush of something like anger or fear or a writhing thing in between, that followed and flooded his limbs with cold.

But he didn't want to be angry about it. Jon-- Jon wasn't okay. And neither was Martin, because it wasn't like he had the high ground, here. It was... not an unexpected reaction, current situation considered. So he let it roll through him, and he kneaded the armchair, and he kept his voice tight and controlled when he spoke.

"And then you just... nobly die so that the rest of the world is safe, right?" Martin asked, calm. Jon flinched anyway. "That's _bullshit_. I thought we established that, you know, when you lectured me about how my life had value beyond flirting with the Lonely for your sake, and I was like, wow, that's very touching, Jon, thank you." It was a sharp-edged and agitated kind of sarcasm, and Martin took a breath, trying to get his racing heart to slow down. "Or were you just saying that?"

"No," Jon said, the knuckles of his undamaged hand pale where he'd clenched the blanket.

"Then what's the difference here?" Martin asked.

An unhappy smile pulled at the corners of Jon's mouth, miserable and bitter. "You're not an apocalyptic linchpin."

"Jon--" Martin began, then stopped. This sort of appeal wasn't going to work. Jon needed things to make sense, more than anything, so how did one out-rationalize Jonathan Sims? "Fine," Martin snapped. "Let's consider it, then. Assuming you even _can_ die that easily, which we don't actually know for sure. But... you're dead. Then Elias kills me and Basira, and he succeeds because we're not halfway to invincible like you are. Probably Melanie and Georgie too, just to cover up loose ends, and Daisy. And then he finds someone else to mark up, and the world ends. Hell, maybe he uses one of _us_ to make it happen instead." Martin huffed. "Sounds _great_. Really productive."

Jon's hands were twitching in his lap. His eyes were on his restless fingers, not Martin.

"If..." Martin said, " _if_ we're going to die, I'd rather it happen killing Elias-- Jonah." That was really what he'd been trying to get at. The world would never be safe as long as Magnus was out there waiting to use Jon or someone else for his apocalyptic agenda. All because Martin hadn't taken the chance to kill him when he'd gotten it, though he wondered if he really could have succeeded. Even then, something had told him otherwise. "And you probably stand the best chance of killing him, actually, so you need to be alive, and you need to not starve."

Jon's eyes remained fixed on his lap, but his mouth curved up ever so slightly. It was pretty bleak, as far as smiles went, but it was something. "I think Melanie would rather be first in line for that."

Martin snorted. "She might never forgive you if got him first."

Jon almost smiled outright. Almost. But something stole it away, an unguarded flash of anguish. "I don't know," he said, "if... if killing Magnus would kill me. I... don't think it would." Martin couldn't figure out if the sudden, quiet certainty in his voice was reassuring or not. "But... you, Basira, everyone, I don't--"

He didn't know, and Martin got even colder, like his limbs were starting to lose feeling under the numb weight of it all. As far as any of them knew, he and Basira were still tied to the Institute, because it wasn't like Martin had the Lonely perversely protecting him anymore. Maybe Daisy, too, if she wasn't consumed by the Hunt, and everyone else who worked there. _Would_ they die, if Elias did?

"I don't know if I could live with that anyway," Jon admitted softly.

"Well, we don't _know_ if it would happen," Martin pointed out. "Even El-- Jonah said he didn't really know. Besides..." Martin grasped desperately for any of the half-baked alternatives that his feverishly tired mind had generated last night. He definitely wasn't okay, if the thought that now ran ceaselessly through his head was that he'd be leaving Jon alone, should he die. "It's... it's the _Archives_. You're the _Archivist_. _You're_ the one with all of the... world-ending power." The words tumbled out, and from where, Martin wasn't sure, but they moved faster than his thoughts could keep up. He instantly regretted the last bit, but Jon didn't flinch, this time. "Maybe you just need to... stake your claim?"

Jon arched an eyebrow at him. "My claim."

Martin nodded. "Yeah. Take control. Make the Institute yours, so that..." He waved a hand aimlessly.

The other eyebrow followed, and it was so reassuringly _Jon_ that Martin's heart beat in time with it. "So that you're tied to me."

"Maybe?" Martin said, and his face flushed, for some reason. "It's just a thought. But maybe it would be easier to kill Elias or get rid of the place or something. Or we could do what Melanie did and blind ourselves first." It felt like a distant memory, though it hadn't been so long ago: Jon begging him to do just that and run away. As always, Martin felt a twinge of helpless regret for how he'd let himself handle that. He still didn't think Jon had meant it as much as he'd wanted to, but... ironic, if they ended up doing so anyway. "There are options, Jon. You don't have to jump right to-- to killing yourself. I would..." He had to clear his throat, and still his voice trembled. "I don't want to live with that, either."

Jon was no longer so stiff, so tense. He sat there for a moment, gazing at Martin with that oddly intense look from earlier, before he leaned forward and picked up the mug again. He took a sip, like he was steadying himself with it, and Martin loved him, then, so powerfully and suddenly for such a small gesture. It caught in Martin's throat, like it wanted to compel some saccharine declaration out of him right then and there.

"Is this why you didn't get any sleep?" Jon asked mildly, something soft in the lines of his face.

Martin tried to smile. He thought it came out rather wrong. "Thinking too much will do that."

"That's typically my job," Jon said.

"Yeah, well," Martin countered. "You need a break."

Jon's face lost its softness, slow and ponderous. It wasn't twitchy, miserable nervousness, and it wasn't two seconds from vomiting up his revulsion at being used like so. But what settled into his face wasn't remotely happy, either. Jon's undamaged hand clenched tight around the mug. His bandaged one curled loosely into his lap, and he didn't speak for a long few moments. "I need to think," he said finally, quiet, hoarse.

"Sure," Martin said, hopping to his feet. It was Jon-speak for wanting to be alone, and that was fine. It was fine. Jon had been in the toilet by himself, and nothing terrible had happened, even if the eggs had come out a little burnt because Martin had been preoccupied with straining his ears. "I'll start on the statements. In the kitchen. If you need--"

"I know where the kitchen is," Jon said, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way that made Martin only narrowly miss slamming a knee into the sofa as he stepped past.

* * *

The fireplace crackled, and the tape recorder was silent. The generator hummed faintly, keeping their food cold and their lights on. The warmth of the mug in Jon's hand had faded somewhat, but he hadn't yet finished the tea. One of those irrational impulses, meaning it was Martin's tea, and Martin's tea meant safety and comfort, and so if Jon had a little to hold on to, things were fine. Placebos had a well-documented effect on the mind, of course, so it wasn't completely ridiculous. Aside from Martin himself, the warm little mug was the only other thing that had kept Jon calm through the excruciating process of explaining exactly what had transpired yesterday.

But it was done. Martin knew. Martin was still here. Martin was... champing at the bit to punch back.

With a sigh, Jon reluctantly placed the tea onto the table again. Then he leaned back, tipping his head to rest against the sofa.

It used to be that he'd have to concentrate on it. Not a strain, but certainly an effort. Now, however, the thought only had to cross his mind and catch his attention, and something shifted, like a flicker and snap at the back of his head, like a stirring and clawing behind his eyes. He _saw_ , more clearly than fleeting glimpses of information, like he was looking at the scene half through Martin's eyes and half through the eyes of something else.

The kitchen lay adjacent to the sitting room, and like the rest of the cabin, it was big enough to accommodate two people, but barely. Martin sat at the table, a duffel bag at his feet. He was fine, safe, even though Jon had found it almost unbearable to watch him walk out of the sitting room. Like something terrible would happen, if Jon was alone, if Martin was alone. Martin had a statement in hand, and he was hunched over it with his face set in grim, uneasy lines. 

Martin hated the statements. Hated reading them and hearing them. But there he was, utterly focused, so that Jon wouldn't have to go near them just yet. Ready to offer up more of his own awful experiences, if Jon needed.

It put a lump in Jon's aching throat.

He didn't look too closely. He wouldn't, if Martin didn't want him to. He just wanted to test something, because Martin had offered bits of himself claimed by fear, and a distressingly large part of Jon had _wanted_ it so very badly. He still wanted it, curious and hungry, and the desire repulsed him. How could he trust himself to take anything else from Martin, or to delve deep enough into his powers to do something about all of this, if desires like that grew too strong?

So he sat there, and he _looked_ , nothing more, nothing less. He wanted to know what Martin was thinking. He wanted to know the intricacies of every terrible thing that had happened while he was away, beyond secondhand recordings. He wanted to taste the lingering traces of Lonely that remained, despite how much Martin wanted to pretend that they didn't.

Jon wanted and wanted, and he had the object of that in his view. The back of his head ached with it, like a slow-growing tumor, but all he did was look.

Resisting the desire to look deeper and closer didn't become unbearable. Just deeply uncomfortable, but Jon couldn't remember the last time he'd ever really been comfortable to begin with. He could handle discomfort.

At least, he could when he wasn't already ravenous. He'd gotten _something_ out of yesterday's statement. He was no longer as hungry as he'd been before the statements had arrived, at least, though not by much.

It wouldn't last. It was already difficult enough, something that he had to actively think about, actively restrain. When he started to get hungry again, that sharp, twisting nausea that made his ears pop and his head throb and the bones behind his eyes ache... would he have this level of control, then? Or would he eventually devolve into a mindless creature that sought only to ease its hunger? Would he be able to resist that, if he tried to let himself waste away? Would he hurt Martin? Someone else?

Jon's head snapped up. He glanced at the door, at the window near it, but all he saw was a glimpse of highland and mid-morning light. He breathed a little too quickly, a little too hard, and it wasn't from _looking_.

After a moment, Jon settled back again, and this time, he looked for Daisy, his stomach swooping with something between dread and grief. But he didn't see her, even when he pushed forward, when the air against his skin grew thick and scratchy with the strain of it, when the point just above his nose began to ache something fierce and bands of pressure wrapped around his head, like he was hundreds of feet underwater. It felt like she was _there_ , somewhere, just beyond the tips of his metaphorical fingers, beyond the wall of pain that would greet him if he pushed too far.

So, still not dead, probably, which was good. But beyond him, unless he dug deeper in a way that would open him up to more of his _patron_.

He was ready to test that, but not on Daisy.

So Jon shifted focus, and the pressure eased. He pulled his awareness in closer, centering it, dwelling on something that Martin had said.

Staking a claim. Now there was a thought.

It didn't hurt, exactly, when he strained for an answer, but it felt... thick. Difficult to wade through, and like parts of himself would seep away with it, if he tried to go too far. Impressions came sluggish and strange. Maybe, they said. It was less a question of possibility or impossibility, and more a question of what rules he could find and bend, what internal logic he could mold over the situation in order to shape it. He got no insight into what rules and logic that might be, but it wasn't a hard no.

The sensation of knowing and trying to know was so very thick, though, like wading through the sucking mud of thoughts that were his and not his. It was comfortable and drowsy, too, a drowning that didn't hurt. It would be easy to slip further in. Easy to want and find sustenance. Easy to know how to bend rules, easy to taste more of what lay fizzing on the tip of his tongue, if only he let himself sink into it all, to find the deepest parts of himself now irreversibly entrenched within the deepest parts of something else.

Easy, if only he opened the door.

Jon squeezed his burned hand, hard and abrupt, and his head shot up again. His entire arm ached with the sudden pressure on the injury, throbbing up and down from shoulder to fingertip, but he was in the sitting room of Daisy's cabin, and he was himself. He could keep himself from taking things from Martin, and he knew that Daisy was out there just beyond his sight, and he knew that what Martin had suggested was more possible than impossible.

Jon stood, slowly and stiffly, as his hand ached, and his throat ached, and he gently set the blanket aside. He could... try. He could try to step further into being the Archivist, if it meant standing a chance against Magnus, if it meant making something out of this mess. It would be... irreversible, however, less of a balancing act and more of a gradual surrender. Jon didn't know what would emerge by the end of it, and the thought sharpened all of his aches.

The alternative was finding some way to kill himself. He could do that, he thought, if all of this only led him that much closer to armageddon. The possibility embedded itself into the back of his mind, tucked away as something to fall back on.

But he didn't know if he could do that to Martin.

Neither would he wish this on anyone else, if Magnus turned his sights on another Archivist. And the simple fact of the matter was: he didn't particularly want to die. Not quite, not most of the time. He'd only been expecting it for a long time. As if it was inevitable, a fitting fate for a monster. As if awakening from the coma had merely been a fluke, as if death was only waiting to catch up to him again, a shadow at his back.

Except, as it turned out, it had been something worse than death at his back all along.

There was no way that he could break free, at any rate. Jon knew that now. There was too much of _fear_ in him, a powder keg waiting for the right spark. He had to find some way to ensure that nothing could light it, and his options, at the moment, seemed to be strength or death. Death was an uncertainty, and would be the surest way to irreparably hurt Martin, so... strength it was. For now.

Jon glanced at the door again, scratching absently at an itch on his neck. He took in the window and the scenery beyond, devoid of people and animals. A chill crept down his spine, quiet and ephemeral.

Something was watching. The Beholding, maybe, since he'd practically invited it in. Or Jonah Magnus, perhaps. Did he know that his ritual had failed? Could he see them here?

 _No you don't,_ Jon thought, and he didn't know where the impulse came from, but Magnus was able to hide himself from sight. So was Daisy, apparently, and the tunnels beneath the Institute achieved the same effect. It was another thing in the realm of possibility, and if Jon could end the world, he could damn well make sure that nothing could see them here. That the rest of the world couldn't get in. That they could be safe, alone, out of sight, in this fleeting home they'd created. At least for a little while.

He didn't know what it was, but the tingling faded from his spine, just like that. The highlands outside the window seemed... normal. Comforting and gray and green. But Jon still ached, and with the fire growing low and the blanket set aside, he was uncomfortably cold. He had half a mind to snatch up the blanket and simply wear it, as he turned towards the kitchen.

Martin appeared in the doorway in the next second, at not quite a sprint. His face was washed out, blanched, and he stared at Jon with wide eyes before he sagged against the door frame. "Sorry," he said. "Sorry, sorry... I'm just jumpy right now, and I worked myself up imagining things, you know, with the statement, and..."

Perhaps whatever Jon had done to throw off watching eyes had worked a little too well.

Jon swept forward and let Martin fold around him and engulf him in a shaking hug, and Martin's voice choked off into nothing. He still held Jon so delicately, like he was afraid to cause any more harm. Jon's memory of the previous afternoon was woolly, clouded, aside from the rending words in his throat, and he really didn't know how else to tell Martin to stop fretting over it. That the fresh burn on his hand wasn't at all the same as a _mark_. That it was only a sign of how Martin had protected him.

Martin didn't let go of him for several long moments, and Jon could practically taste his fear, cloying and tempting and something to firmly, deliberately ignore.

"Sorry," Martin said again, and Jon didn't mention the moratorium, only rubbed soothing circles into his back before Martin pulled away. "You know what, I'm... I'm going down to the village later, and you are coming with. I don't think I can handle... this, yet."

He didn't clarify, but he didn't need to. Jon was almost certain that nothing watched them now. It would only be Martin's eyes on him, panicked and guilty and paranoid, and never straying for more than a few minutes, and Jon didn't know when that would ease. If it would ease. But it wasn't always bad, being watched. "That's quite alright," Jon said. "I'm not keen on being alone right now, either."

* * *

They sat in the kitchen now, a small thing with a little table and a stove and a fridge all bunched together, and Martin had made sure to haul away the bag of statements. He hadn't even finished reading through the one he'd picked up first, too busy straining his ears for any hint of something gone wrong and trying to ignore the turning of his stomach, the further he read into the statement. A deep dive into each and every one was going to take longer than he thought, between reading the written ones and listening to the tapes, but he'd just have to dig in and bear it. For the sake of the world. For Jon's sake.

He fixed another mug of tea for Jon and one for himself, this time, because he needed something to warm him up and stop his hands from shaking. When he took a seat on the stool across from Jon, with the table between them and a whirring tape recorder on top, Jon wasted no time launching into speech, unbandaged hand wrapping around the mug like a lifeline.

" _If_ I starved for too long," Jon said, as if there had been no gap in the conversation, and Martin almost smiled despite himself, especially at the sight of the blanket draped around Jon's shoulders, "I might not even die quickly. I might just become... worse. Lose myself even more." Jon stopped, his jaw twitching with something that soon faded away. "And in the event of my death, Magnus would find himself another Archivist, like you said. So... you're right. At the moment, it isn't worth the risk."

 _Or worth throwing your life away,_ Martin almost said, but Jon was agreeing with him and seeing reason, and he didn't want to push it. He only nodded encouragingly.

"But," Jon said, and his brows knotted together, "if I confront Magnus, if I need to get... _stronger_ , to do so... I might become worse anyway. More monstrous."

"You're not a monster," Martin said at once. "Can't there be, I don't know... a middle ground?"

They weren't safe. That was all that Martin could think about. They'd come here to lay low, from police and Elias and who knew what else, and they'd been found anyway. The caution of before -- Jon trying not to _see_ , living off of scraps -- it all seemed so short-sighted and rife with denial now. They would always be at a disadvantage, as long as they kept reacting instead of acting, and as long as creatures like Jonah Magnus held all of the cards.

Jon definitely wasn't human, but that didn't mean that he was _monstrous_. He still tried to resist taking live statements. He still loved Martin in a way that Martin had never even dared to imagine, back in what felt like lifetimes ago. He _had_ some kind of middle ground already. He could stay there, with a little help. If he had something to anchor him. Martin had to believe that.

Jon looked down at the mug, his face shuttering with a humorless smile. "You don't understand."

"Then explain it to me," Martin said, and he reached across the table and over the tape recorder.

Jon let go of the mug and let his hand be enveloped, tangling his fingers with Martin's. His bandaged hand gingerly pulled the blanket a little tighter around himself, and his other hand slotted perfectly into Martin's, worm scars and all.

"I don't get to pick and choose," Jon said. "If I start... actively playing this game, beyond just... eating to survive, which wasn't working very well anyway, then... I lose. Even if I win... it'll take all of me." His voice faltered. "I know that. I don't think there'll be much humanity left in me, after that." He breathed slowly and deliberately, in and out. "So if you think we should do it this way..."

When he didn't continue, Martin's brain stuttered and then caught up. His hand tightened around Jon's convulsively. "I-- I can tell you what I think, but I can't..." What, ask Jon to _embrace_ being a monster? "Jon, you can't put that on me."

"I wasn't trying-- it's... _you'll_ lose, Martin," Jon said, meeting his gaze with something earnest and desperate there. His thumb ran delicately over Martin's wrist. "Even if I don't die. You'll lose me. I need to know that you're okay with that."

Martin went very still. Jon's mind sounded made up, and he was... asking for permission? Martin swallowed and looked down, his eyes tracing the wood grain of the table between them and following the edges of the tape recorder. "What does it matter how I feel?" he said quietly. Even though he'd watched Jon walk away to the Unknowing, even though all of the resulting misery had been pointless in the end, even though... "If the alternative is an _apocalypse_..."

"I still need to know."

Oh. Martin's heart thumped, hard and fast, and he wondered if Jon could feel it pumping beneath his fingers. He wondered if Jon knew how dizzying it was to hear those words. To know that Jon was laying the world at his feet and implying that he might have cared slightly more for one than the other.

Could Martin be okay with it? If the alternative was watching Jon become a vessel for the end of the world? Was watching Jon die? It wasn't like they could run. Not anymore, not when the key to the apocalypse was _in_ Jon.

And, Martin thought, he too had been steeped in this for too long. Nothing short of carving his own eyes out would see him free, and maybe it wouldn't even be enough, now. He was in this nearly as deep as Jon.

"I don't care," Martin said, slow but certain, "if you turn into... something else. I mean... it's not that I don't care, it's just... it won't drive me away. If you're using it to stop bad people, to stop the world from _ending_ , then... it's fine. We can figure out the rest."

He might have felt differently, before he came back into the cabin to find the apocalypse being torn out of Jon's throat. But that sort of thing apparently had a way of offering perspective. They couldn't afford to hem and haw now, when the end of the world had come so very close.

"I _can_ be okay with it," Martin finished, because fuck all that noise about _losing_ him, "if you don't use it as an excuse to push me away."

Jon had a stubborn set to his face. "Even if I become a danger to you?"

" _If_ ," Martin said. "There are so many _ifs_ here! But you know what? Yeah. Even if. I'm not going anywhere." Not again, he thought, his fingers locked around Jon's palm. Not after worms, and Not Thems, and murders, and Unknowings, and coffins, and not after a bloody fucking apocalypse only narrowly averted. "That's... those are my terms, actually. I'll be okay with it if we do this _together_. No running off by yourself to do something stupid."

For a moment, he wondered if Jon would argue, and if they'd have to go around and around the topic until one of them gave in. Martin was ready to dig his heels in and not give ground, but it was Jon who gave in, just like that, with a deep frown. "Alright."

Martin didn't want to be suspicious of it. He was, because this was Jon, stubborn, impulsive Jon who was bad at lying and too myopic for comfort. But Martin didn't press. He knew the topic would come up again, and he'd just have to keep an eye out in the meantime, for concerning behavior of more than one sort. He only nodded and squeezed Jon's hand.

Jon's shoulders relaxed somewhat, as he squeezed back. He extracted his hand from Martin's, but it was only so that he could pick up the mug and take a sip. "So," Jon said, setting the mug back down. "Killing Jonah Magnus. That's the plan."

"That's the objective," Martin said, only just containing a roll of his eyes. "The plan... I've got some ideas. But I need to call Basira, and we need to stock up anyway, so the next step is to go down to the village." Together, and luckily, Jon was on the exact same page, there. "I think you should rest first--"

"Martin," Jon said with a sigh.

" _Jon_ ," Martin said. "Let me at least get through a few of the statements, okay? Then we'll go."

Maybe it was because the idea of leaving the cabin had him just a bit jumpy now, and he needed to do something that let him pretend to have control of the situation. And maybe Jon knew that, and maybe he wasn't so keen on leaving either, because he gave in again, hunching into the blanket with another sigh, and he didn't seem to mind when Martin stayed in the same room this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Discussion of suicidal ideation.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

The October air was brisk, and the sky had grayed out by the time they made it down to the village that afternoon. Martin had been here several times to make use of the village shop and the phone box, and it had only ever been comforting, as a small and sleepy place where Martin could blend in with the movements of normal life in a way that never demanded too much. Enough tourists came to the highlands that no one really looked twice at a new face, and it was easy to pretend that things were normal, when Martin was doing something as nice and mundane as grocery shopping.

Aside from their first day here, Jon had never come with him, wary of encountering anyone who had a statement ripe for the taking, and even more so when he'd started to deteriorate. But now, after leaving Daisy's car behind, they walked hand in hand down the dirt roads, bundled up against the cold and keeping a nervous eye out.

It was strange, how a tiny village in the middle of nowhere had so quickly become a source of anxiety. Nothing had changed here. There was nothing particularly offending about it, except for how the spaces between houses had become corners for things to hide in, except for how the land around the village was wide and open and foggy, and things could come from any angle.

Jon hovered close, nearly stepping on Martin's shoes at times. He stood out more, scarred and bandaged as he was, and the few people they saw usually ended up looking twice. But when Martin noticed, he stared back, obviously and pointedly, until their eyes turned away.

"There's, ah--" Jon said, too deep in his own head to really notice. "There are a few. People here, I mean. With statements." Martin squeezed his hand as Jon frowned. "I'm not particularly hungry right now, not too badly, but--"

"Just let me know if we need to duck into an alley or something," Martin said.

But they reached the phone box without incident. It was barely big enough to house one person, let alone two, and Martin took a second to convince himself to let go of Jon's hand. "I'll talk to her first," he said. "Um... will you be okay, waiting?"

"I'm not a child," Jon said, but it was only dry, not biting. "I'll be fine."

"Yeah," Martin said. "Don't go far?"

Jon leaned against the nearest wall, belonging to the post office, and made a vague gesture, as if to indicate that he wouldn't. So Martin squeezed into the phone box and dialed Basira's mobile. He could have used his own to make the call, as soon as they'd gotten close enough to the village again to pick up on a signal, but it was safer to do it this way, when the investigation wasn't quite concluded. Besides, maybe he _did_ like the aesthetics of it.

Basira answered quickly and said, without the slightest preamble, "Something wrong?"

They'd settled for once-or-twice-a-week calls. Two in two days could only mean that something had changed, and Basira knew that, and yet Martin found it difficult to locate his voice. "Sort of," he said and cleared his throat. "Um... we're fine. Mostly. But... something happened."

"How bad?" Basira asked. Martin heard movement on the other end. "Emergency?"

"Not quite," Martin said. The movement stopped. "Not yet. But it's bad. Very bad."

Basira's breathing in his ear was steady and unchanging. "Then spit it out."

So Martin braced himself. "One of the statements," he began, "it was a trap."

He meant to keep it brief, but maybe he listed out a few things in extra detail that weren't completely necessary, in order to make a thinly veiled and frustrated point. And maybe his salvo of those particular details had an effect: as he spoke, Basira hissed in one solitary and sharp intake of breath, and then he could barely hear her at all. But he knew that she was listening intently, because the movement that picked up on the other end became audibly angry.

When at last he trailed off, Basira remained silent, and movement continued to drift over the connection. It might have been pacing or something close to it, until it stopped, and then Martin hardly heard anything. The silence carried on long enough that he was about to ask if Basira was still there, until: "I should have checked."

Basira's voice was hard, angry. Not her usual sort of restrained displeasure, but furious and low.

"Basira--" Martin said.

"I ran around doing useless errands for _months,_ " Basira snapped, more strained than Martin had ever heard her. Martin blinked, mouth hanging open with the remains of the platitude he'd been about to offer, unsure of what to say when faced with a Basira who had rapidly become very, very upset. "The Unknowing. Ny-Ålesund. All of it, just to play right into his _fucking_ ritual?" She laughed, a bitter, acidic thing. "Might as well have handed Jon over to him myself."

Well, his salvo had definitely landed, but it wasn't quite the effect that Martin had wanted. "You didn't," he said quickly. "Elias used you too."

Another silence followed, but Martin didn't probe into it. He could sit with silence, and he listened to Basira's quick breaths, until at last they evened out somewhat. "He's got to go," Basira said. She still sounded angrier and more venomous than Martin could ever remember hearing, but it was focused now, locked on to a target. "Elias. Jonah. Whoever."

"Yep," Martin said.

Basira hesitated. Maybe she'd been expecting something else. "Even if it kills us?"

"It might not," Martin said, because if he was the only one who could summon up some optimism right now, he'd do his best. "But yeah."

The silence was ponderous, this time. Basira moved again, and something clunked softly on the other end. "How's Jon?" she asked abruptly.

"He's..." Martin chewed on his lip, on the words. Suicidal? In shock? His eyes kept straying to Jon every few seconds, but very little had changed in Jon's hunched posture against the bricks, in the way his coat bunched up around his neck. He hardly even looked at the phone box. Almost completely in his own head, without Martin to draw him out of it. "Not great. I'm... still waiting for the dam to break, you know?"

"Yeah," Basira said.

This silence was worse, because it only took Martin a few moments to suss out what was brewing in it. He could guess what Basira was thinking, and it brought his heart up to pound in his ears and drowned out any feeling of goodwill, of sympathy, of solidarity. The glass blocked most of the wind, but he was no less cold, as he waited for Basira to speak.

He heard it in Basira's voice, too: reluctant but determined. "Martin, if he's got these marks--"

"Don't say it," Martin snapped, with a sudden vehemence that took even him by surprise. He'd never been particularly angry, before all of this. Or he had, but he'd repressed it so much that it had to simmer under pressure and boil over, first. These days, there was far less holding it back, and he was surprised that Jon didn't glance over, when the glass was thin and Martin hadn't bothered to mind his volume.

Something else clunked on Basira's end. She breathed out, slow and steady. "You going to let me talk at all?"

"Not if your brilliant idea is _killing_ him," Martin hissed.

"Look, I'm sorry," Basira said, her tone somehow striking a balance between consoling and firm enough to get him to shut up, for a moment. "I really am. I don't actually want to see him hurt. I took him to Ny-Ålesund, and now I've got to live with that." The traces of softness in her voice dried out, leaving only hard edges. "But if I've got to float the hard suggestions, then I will. And if his death is the safest way to--"

"Yeah, he's _way_ ahead of you on that one," Martin spat out, and it was his turn to sound venomous. Bad enough that Jon was looking for a reason to off himself, without anyone else offering their useless input on the matter. It was why Martin had wanted to talk to her first, but his prepared arguments had been subsumed by the irate pounding of his heart. "Why's your first suggestion always murder, anyway? Is it a police thing?"

He heard Basira's teeth click together. A long few moments dragged by. "Was I supposed to just let him keep feeding on people, then?"

"Pretty sure his victim count is still less than yours!" Martin said, caustic, and he knew that he was avoiding the question, but he didn't care. He just wanted to keep taking aim, grasping at whatever angry words surfaced, because he hadn't meant _that_ , when he'd asked to her to intervene. He'd thought he'd been leaving Jon in somewhat capable hands, and he'd done it for less than nothing, and it trembled through his voice. "Stones in glass houses, I think it's called? Unless aiding and abetting keeps your hands clean?"

Another silence, long and uncomfortable. It left enough room for Martin's head to clear, somewhat, for him to remember that he needed to lower his voice and start begrudgingly grasping at ways to salvage the conversation. They needed her. He needed her to listen to what he had to say.

But then: "Alright," Basira said, her voice flat and carefully professional. "What do you think we should do?"

It caught Martin by surprise and knocked his salvage attempts right out of his head. It took him a moment to remember the arguments he'd brought along, the same ones he'd used with Jon. "Even _if_ Jon was dead," Martin said, "Elias-- Jonah is the problem here. He knows how to make this ritual work, and he'll just keep making Archivists until it does. You were right earlier. We've got to kill him. So... I think we should find Daisy first."

He really would have thought that the line had gone dead, had he not grown used to the ebbs and flows of this conversation. "Wasn't under the impression you cared," Basira said finally.

It was just a jab, small but calculated. Martin wanted to volley one back, but he didn't. "I-- I do," he said. "I do care." They hadn't spent a lot of time, well, getting along, lately, and that was on him more than anything. But hearing about what Daisy had done to buy Jon time, to protect Basira... it had still hurt, after the fog had cleared. "And not just because I think she can help."

More movement, though he couldn't for the life of him deduce what she was doing. It sounded heavy. "How so?" Basira asked, still utterly neutral.

She was listening. Martin's voice grew steadier. "Jonah's body, the original one-- it looked pretty fixed?" he said. "It's got to still be under the Institute somewhere. But... if you put a bullet in him, or if I got a knife in him, I'm not sure it would actually kill him. I just... have a feeling it's not so simple." Elias had been far too gleeful about it, back in the Panopticon, and looking back, Martin wondered if something awful would have happened instead, had he shoved that knife into Jonah's body. "Even if we get back there, we might need the rest of him, too. The bit that's in Elias. And a lot more than a bullet or a knife."

"And you think Daisy could find him and kill him?"

"I think Daisy's a Hunter, and Hunters are good at that," Martin said, and the words didn't taste quite right. It would mean asking Daisy to _stay_ a Hunter, just like it meant asking Jon to stay an Archivist. But what else could they do, at this point? Go in blind and vulnerable and fumbling with things they still barely understood, and die for the trouble of it, fixing nothing? "And I think Jon could kill him too, and find him, what with being, you know, what he is."

"So if we've got both of them," Basira said, and some of the flatness of her voice gave way to a thoughtful upturn, "we double our chances of ending him for good."

"Yeah," Martin said, and he knew to pull back and give Basira time to think.

Think on it she did, her breathing across the line just a little erratic. There was a soft rustle and squeak, like she'd sat down on something. "And if I make good on my promise instead?"

Martin's stomach dropped. He didn't mean for his voice to crack. "Are-- are you going to?"

"Haven't decided," Basira said, still stiff and flat. "Depends on what I find." She took a breath, and when she next spoke, her voice wasn't soft, exactly. But it wasn't carefully devoid of anything and everything. "Did Jon ask you the same thing?"

Martin was abruptly reminded that she'd been an officer. That she was Eye-touched, at the very least. It felt a bit like having a spotlight shined on him in a dark room, and the air might as well have been punched out of him. "Not in so many words," he sighed.

But it wasn't so far from what Jon had been asking of him, in the end. To just sit back and watch him die. To let it happen.

"Look, I... I thought I had, for a second," Martin continued, oddly urgent, moved by the impulse to, what-- reassure? What reassurance was there in a situation like that? But he kept going. "Killed him, I mean. It was like the statement... possessed him. Full-body possessed him. I got it away from him and burned it, and then I had to pin him down to keep him from trying to get it out of the fire, while the scar on his hand _boiled_ in front of me. I was scared out of my mind, thinking it was going to burn the rest of him too." He shoved away the tide of images that rose up in the dark corners of his thoughts like a creeping, mocking fog, like a reminder of how close he'd come to being alone again. "But it didn't. He came back to me. He got free."

"Is he free, though?" Basira asked. It almost sounded sad.

Jon was there, through the glass and in the corner of Martin's watchful eye. Lost in troubled thought, unhappy, hunched and hurting. But still alive. Not yet a harbinger of the end of days. "Free enough to do something about it," Martin said.

Something left Basira's mouth, almost too quick to notice, quavering and cut off. She spoke a little too fast, after that, like she was trying to cover it up. "I don't think freeing Daisy will be as easy as burning a piece of paper."

Martin had something vicious to say about how the idea of hurting Jon only seemed easy to her. He choked it down. "How Elias reacted, back when I started burning statements, when--" He put a sharp stop to that thought. Nope. No dwelling on any of it. "Well. That's how I knew it would work. Sometimes the logic behind these things is a lot more straightforward than it seems."

Basira offered an unimpressed little _hmph_. She could at least _try_ to appreciate his efforts, Martin thought, mulish. "And what do you think the Daisy's logic would be?"

"I think you'd know that better than me," Martin said.

Tapping came through on the other end -- a keyboard, maybe. That was the only sound, for a while.

"We've still got to find her," Basira said, with the air of a mind made up.

Martin relaxed somewhat, and only then did he notice that his grip on the phone was too tight. His cold fingers ached as he extracted the phone from them and switched to the other hand. "Jon hasn't had any luck either," he said. "I know we're supposed to be laying low, but, I think it's been long enough, and I don't think we should waste too much time. So, if we worked together? Three Eyes are better than one?"

"It'd be six eyes, actually," Basira said, with the air of interjecting just to be annoying.

"Now you sound like Jon," Martin sighed.

There was nothing hard in Basira's voice when she said, "If anyone else told me that, I'd think it was an insult." Only a wry thoughtfulness, and then a pause. "Martin," she said, slow and contemplative. "What if Magnus isn't the only one who knows?"

The chill that crawled down Martin's spine had nothing to do with the slow progress of autumn into winter. He... hadn't thought about it, actually. _Stupid._ A stupid mistake, but there'd just been too much to think about, too much to process. "Then... I expect we'll run into them eventually." Who else, then? Peter had seemed to be in some kind of know, but Peter was dead. Jon had mentioned something about possible Web involvement. And... but Martin stopped himself again. Later. "All the more reason to have Daisy and Jon both."

"As monsters," Basira said, getting to the acerbic point.

Martin winced. "We keep _losing_ , Basira!" And he was sick of it. Tim had died for nothing, and the thing that had killed Sasha was still out there, and Jon had been branded with the seals of the apocalypse right under Martin's nose, and he was _sick_ of it. "That is _all_ that we will _ever_ do unless we find some way to fight back, and I'm-- I'm done sticking my head in the sand and trying to pretend like this can all just blow over. It won't, unless we make sure that _no one_ is left who knows about this, except us. And you know what, value judgments are _rich_ , coming from _you_ \--"

But Martin stopped himself again, and silence rang. There was no more tapping and clicking on the other end, and Martin got the impression that Basira had simply stopped in surprise. Then: "Okay," she said simply, like everything he'd said had been obvious.

Martin blinked. "Really?"

"Yeah," Basira said, and her voice turned wry. "Wasn't like I had a problem with it before. But if--" She came to a full stop and tried again. "If Daisy's... gone, completely gone... I made a promise. I owe it to her. And if Jon goes off the deep end--"

" _I'll_ handle that," Martin said, with every bit of cold civility that he could muster.

Another _hmph_. Basira moved again, a rustle of fabric and the scrape of a chair. "Never would have figured you for a murder spree type."

"Well," Martin said, "things change. So," he continued briskly, because he'd come here to plan, not chitchat, "when's the earliest, you think, that the police won't have eyes on the Institute?"

* * *

Martin emerged from the phone box with a lighter step. It wasn't particularly glaring or obvious, but there was a way he moved when he was overly distressed, purposeful and head down, and there was a way he moved when he was weighed down with things that, as of late, had a Lonely kind of tint, slow and stiff. This was neither, Jon observed. The talk must have gone well, even if it had gotten a little loud for a moment.

"Your turn," Martin said and took Jon's place near the wall of the post office, then added an unnecessary, "I'll be right here."

Jon gave him an acknowledging smile and maneuvered into the phone box, which was uncomfortably tight and held a chill, even though it broke the wind. He almost reached for the phone with his right hand, before he remembered. He shifted awkwardly, then lifted the phone to his ear with his left. "Basira."

"Jon," Basira said. She sounded... very calm. "You alright?"

Jon wanted to laugh, but he was fairly certain that it would emerge hysterical, if he let himself. He mustered up a delicate, neutral answer. "As much as I can be."

"Yeah?" Basira said, dry. "Because you sound awful. But at least you're up for bullshitting."

There was no hiding how Jon's voice croaked now. At least it wasn't too painful to speak, as long as he didn't keep going and going, but statements would be a problem if it didn't start to heal soon. "I'm up for more than that," Jon said, and he let himself lean against the glass, tucking himself into the corner. Martin was in his sight, trying not to be obvious about his worried glances at Jon and his sweeping glances at the street. "I'm assuming you suggested something that Martin didn't care to hear?"

Something rustled on the other end, something that Basira took her time with before answering. "Knew that, did you?" she asked, an artificial cast to her calm now.

"I heard him yell," Jon said. He could make an educated guess as to what it was, without any need for the Eye to fill him in. It wasn't often that Martin raised his voice like that. "And for what it's worth, you were right to bring it up."

He was on borrowed time, either way. It ticked on relentlessly, and the sense of something at his back was not just the gaze of his unwanted god. It might very well come down to his death, in the end, and if anyone was going to broach the subject...

"No," Basira said, and Jon's cold fingers may have slipped around the phone somewhat. "I wasn't. Wasn't going to stop me from suggesting it, but that doesn't make it right." Jon floundered in his attempt to figure out what to say to that, and Basira didn't stop. "It's made one thing crystal clear for me, though. All of our options are complete shit." She huffed out something that might have been a very bitter, very tired laugh. "Makes Martin's ideas seem reasonable."

Jon adjusted the phone in his grip and brushed the fingers of his burned hand against the phone cord, for lack of something to occupy them. More than reasonable -- it had been at his back too, a shadow and a worry that had darkened even those few short weeks where he'd foolishly thought that he could have something like peace for a moment.

"I think we can find Daisy," Jon said, and his voice was steady with a certainty that he wasn't going to question. "We can help her. I know you've been keen on working alone, lately, and I know I've been trying to... hold back, with these _abilities_ , but... we're long past that, now, and even if I'm stuck with these _marks_ , and I... _become_ something, I can at least try to stop something worse from happening before that. I--"

"Jon," Basira interrupted. "It's fine."

Jon stared at the dial pad, in lieu of having a face to examine in order to make sure that said face wasn't joking. The silver pad was fogged with his breath. "Really?"

The rustling had stopped. The other end was still and silent. "Either the world's going to end, or it won't," Basira said eventually, something like surrender in her voice. "If it is... I'd like to find Daisy first. And if we can stop the apocalypse along the way, great." Jon figured she was her grinding her teeth together, in the empty pause. "But I'm getting the feeling that neither of those things are going to happen without a little help."

The insight came unbidden. Basira was afraid that she would never get closure, that the Hunt would rip it away from her, a piece of tantalizing, rotten meat dangling always just out of reach. An endless chase. The Eye wanted to see into the depths of that fear, an insistent scrape behind Jon's frontal bone. Jon breathed deep around the stirrings of hunger, flexing his burned hand and wincing. He focused on the contrast -- the hot stinging beneath the bandage versus the chilly glass at his back, radiating even through his coat.

"Still no leads, then?" he asked, soft.

"No," Basira said, almost a growl, and Jon knew that her anger wasn't directed at him. "She's too good at hiding her tracks. So we need to be better." Her sigh was loud and unfettered and weary in his ears, like she was too tired to put up a front anymore. "You tried looking for her yet?"

"Yes," Jon said. "But I couldn't see anything. She's-- I would assume that means the Hunt provides some kind of protection. I think... I need you too. Someone more closely aligned with the Hunt than I am."

Something thumped. Basira let out another short, angry breath. "If the Hunt's keeping her out of sight, then it's got her," she said, and it wasn't quite anguished, wasn't quite miserable, but it was as close to that as Basira would let him hear. "If we find her, if she's..."

"She'll need an anchor," Jon said, soft again.

Basira didn't speak for a long few moments, and Jon didn't either. He waited. He watched Martin, who couldn't quite keep himself still in the chill air, who pretended to be interested in something on the ground when he caught Jon's eye. Jon felt a smile pull at his face, unbidden, as if such a thing was easy and natural.

"I already told Martin this," Basira said at last, and she was almost convincingly back to business. Almost. "But give me a few more days. I'll get us a little more information and figure out a place to meet up."

"Of course," Jon said, and a sliver of relief slipped out with it. He needed to do this, almost as much as Basira did. If things went wrong for him, he needed to see Daisy again first. To do what he could to help, even if all of his latest attempts at that had only ever made things worse, it seemed. But he owed it to Daisy to try, because there wouldn't be any more chances, soon enough. "And we will find her, Basira."

"Yeah," Basira said, and though she didn't sound very happy or optimistic, the answer came without a pause and wasn't quite riddled with doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Mention of suicidal ideation.


	4. Chapter 4

The shop was almost too normal, and when they stepped inside, it took Martin a moment to unfreeze. Like the lights were too bright and artificial and revealing. Like his thoughts missed a step, when confronted with aisles and choices and the eyes of people who were too normal to have any idea of what was out there. But something brushed against his shoulder, gentle and nudging: Jon, who moved in closer with obvious concern, and like that, Martin's head cleared.

"Right," Martin said, determined, snagging a trolley. "Start here."

"We'll have to carry it all, you know," Jon said, trailing close as Martin made a beeline for the medical aisle.

"Car's not that far," Martin reminded him. Jon held his right arm stiffly, at an awkward angle against his body, and Martin eyed him for a moment, before grabbing several bottles of antibiotic cream. He grabbed a few first aid kits too, and when he turned his attention to the medicine, Jon made a small, grunted sort of noise. " _What,_ Jon?"

"Do we need that much?" Jon asked.

"It's fine," Martin said, zeroing in on the aspirin. Even though they weren't getting paid by the Institute anymore, and hadn't been for a few weeks now. Maybe it was a tactic on Elias's part, but Martin was keeping an eye on what they had left between them. Plus a little help from Basira was waiting in the wings, if necessary. "Been able to save up a lot, actually, since--" 

His mouth shut, abrupt and cut off. He froze.

Jon's hand found his arm, a shock of contact even through Martin's coat. Jon's eyes were soft, worried. Unsure.

"Might as well put it to good use," Martin added, robotic.

"Yes," Jon said, quiet and low in that way that shivered down Martin's spine. "I suppose so." He hesitated, then reached for a few rolls of gauze himself, and Martin's limbs unlocked.

After scouting for non-perishables and other necessities and offering a noncommittal answer to the chatty assistant about going out into the country for several weeks, Martin took the bulk of the bags, though Jon sneaked a few onto his injured arm before Martin could stop him and then refused to give them back.

It was a nice walk back to Daisy's car, even if it was still too cold for October. The mundanity of it lasted as long as it took to put the groceries in the trunk. Martin idly contemplated how much could fit in there, in the event of needing to go even further on the down low. The trunk had a false bottom, because of course it did, so it was even roomier than first glance. It could fit a stockpile, easily.

Then Jon's head snapped to the side. 

Martin jumped and instantly remembered that he'd wanted to see about getting his hands on some weapons or the equivalent, if this place had a DIY shop or the like. The false trunk bottom would work excellently for that, actually. But Jon turned towards the nearest building like a hound tracking blood, and Martin saw that its front door was not as he'd vaguely noticed it a few minutes ago.

He relaxed. A bit.

Jon didn't. His jaw was set and twitching, a sign of quiet fuming, as he marched over to the yellow door and rapped on it with the fist that wasn't currently wrapped up in bandages. Martin closed the trunk and followed, as Jon stepped back by a few paces, and the door creaked open with a long, long screech.

Martin didn't look too closely at what lay within or at the being that leaned lazily out, but the sharp angles of thought were inevitable no matter where he looked, twisting the air like barbed waves and buzzing in a way that was far deeper than sound.

"Jonathan," Helen drawled, grinning from ear to ear and past. She relaxed against the door frame, and Martin wasn't quite sure if her arms were folded or not. "You're looking well."

"What are you doing here?" Jon asked. It had been a long time since Martin had heard him speak like that, cold and harder than diamond.

Helen's head tilted at an unpleasant angle. "Can't I want to check up on a friend?"

A tremor rolled through Jon's shoulders, as he stood there before Helen's door with his fists clenched at his sides, gazing at her like he was trying to _see_. He probably was. Martin tapped at Jon's arm, trying to get him to relax the pressure on the burn, but Jon didn't appear to notice. "You knew."

Helen wagged a long, pointy finger at him. It rippled like seaweed in water, if seaweed was sharp and shifting in all the wrong ways. "I suspected. That's not quite the same thing. I didn't _know_ until just now, in fact."

Martin added a mental note to his list of those they may or may not have had to worry about: Helen knew, enough to put a grin on her face. But was that a good thing or a bad thing? She'd helped before -- more than once, from what Martin had heard -- and yet Jon was now trembling with anger.

Helen's head tilted again, a sharp twist of skin that shouldn't have been possible. She grinned at Martin, a thing of too many teeth, like she sensed his scrutiny. "And hello to you too, Martin! Lovely to see you."

"Um, hi?" Martin said. "Jon, _please_ stop that." He swatted lightly at Jon's arm, and at last Jon unclenched his fingers, though his rigid gaze had yet to move from Helen.

" _Oh,_ " Helen said, delighted. "You two are _very_ adorable. I think some congratulations are most definitely in order."

"Enough," Jon snapped. "You _knew_ what was happening. You could have helped, you could have warned me!"

"I could've," Helen said agreeably. "But we've all missed chances to help, haven't we, Archivist?" Jon stiffened even more at that, as Helen unwound a little, head straightening and arms most definitely unfolded. "And would it have made a _difference_? Would it have _changed_ anything? Would you have left your dear, sweet Martin to rot?"

Jon wavered, anger flickering like the words had struck him.

Helen sighed, a fluttering thing that stuttered like static. "I have to say, I would have liked to see what world you might have wrought. It would have been _delicious._ But," she added dismissively, as if it was only a passing fancy, "the predicament you find yourself in now is _most_ interesting. I'm excited to see how you handle it."

"What do you mean?" Martin asked, at the same time that Jon shook himself and turned to Martin with iron in his voice and said, "We're leaving."

"Jon, wait," Martin said, even as Jon tugged at him and gave him an offended look. " _Wait._ " Martin pushed past him a little and tried not to get lost in Helen's unnervingly mismatched eyes. "What do you know?"

"All this talk of _knowing_ ," Helen said, as Jon opened his mouth to protest and then closed it. Helen's eyes blinked at different times, one after another, and with that came the impulse to track the pattern. But something told Martin that it was a pattern that would never be found, that would only drag a mind deeper and deeper into its impossible maze. "Does it help you to comprehend? Or does it leave you more confused? More lost?"

"It might not," Martin said.

" _Martin_ ," Jon said, hand on his arm. 

Martin didn't budge. "Depends on what you've got."

Helen chuckled and drew herself up, stepping past her doorway. Martin could no longer keep track of her arms, and instinct made him twitch with the desire to take a step back. He didn't. Jon moved closer to him, glaring at them both and shoving an arm in front of Martin.

"I'll give you a piece of advice," Helen said, taller than either of them as she winked at Martin, or maybe it wasn't winking, "and a gift." She stooped to bring her eyes level with Jon's, and he glowered back. He almost definitely wasn't blinking. "I can smell it on you, Archivist. Which means that anyone can. You can't cloak it entirely, although I must admit, I had quite a difficult time finding you here."

Smell what? The ritual? The marks? Shit. That could become a problem all too easily, if it led others to them. But what did the rest of it mean? Martin glanced nervously between Jon and Helen, but neither moved.

"And I'm sure I can trust what you say," Jon said, quiet, scathing.

"I _told_ you, I don't lie to _you_ ," Helen said, then appeared to reconsider this. Her shrug undulated, not quite in tune with the rest of her body. "Except by omission, of course."

Jon didn't appear impressed and said nothing else, only scowled at her, unyielding and unmoving, as if determined to win whatever staring contest they were in the midst of.

"My _goodness_ ," Helen said with a cluck of her tongue, her eyes rolling over to Martin. "Is he always in _such_ a mood?"

Jon looked fit to launch into a tirade, at this point, but Martin gently pushed his arm down. He understood why Jon was upset, and he wasn't going to begrudge him that, but as far as allies went, their choices were severely limited. "... Not always," Martin said diplomatically.

"Martin!" Jon snapped, his head swiveling to redirect his glare.

"I'm glad to hear that," Helen said over him, the picture of exaggerated relief. "I can't imagine how you put up with him, otherwise."

"It's just, you could have told him what you _suspected_ ," Martin added, and he met her unsettling gaze steadily, pointedly.

Helen nodded sympathetically, something flickering through her mismatched eyes that he couldn't begin to interpret. "I most certainly could have," she said, "so why don't I make it up to you with," one of her long hands extended and unfurled, and the air in front of Martin shimmered and warped like the air in her corridors, "this?"

Martin caught it on instinct, while Jon reacted convulsively, hands reaching out and then freezing, as if to rip it away from Martin and hurl it back.

A book rested heavy and thick in Martin's arms, telltale Leitner bookplate attached: _The Seven Lamps of Architecture._ It hadn't been all that long ago since he'd seen it. Back in the Panopticon, in Peter's hands, before Martin had lost track of things entirely in the clutches of the Lonely.

"How did you get this?" Martin asked, gazing down at the book with his heart pounding wildly between fear and elation. 

"Do you really think I'm above thievery?" Helen drawled.

This was exactly what they needed, and one less headache to solve, when it came to navigating the underbelly of the Institute. Martin had put it down as a problem for the future, concerning and yet ultimately not practical to worry about just yet, but... "Have you been spying on us?" Jon demanded.

"Jon," Helen said, in the patient manner of talking to a very young, very clueless child, "it doesn't require eavesdropping _or_ genius to guess where you will inevitably return. I thought I would..." she waved an undulating hand at the book, "make things a little easier."

Martin tucked the book under his arm and looked up at her, struck with a sudden thought. "Couldn't your corridors do that too?"

"Martin, no," Jon said at once, tugging Martin to face him. "We're not trusting her and _blindly_ walking into--"

"But what if a shortcut could help?" Martin countered. "We don't exactly have all the time in the world."

Jon went to answer, face drawn with frustration, but Helen was faster and louder. "As much as I am touched and intrigued," she said, and Jon's mouth snapped shut, "I have no desire to listen to your lovers' quarrel, and _you_ ," her pointy finger, flickering like TV static, came very close to poking Jon in the forehead, but he didn't flinch, only glared, "aren't even ripe yet." Helen retracted her finger, but an afterimage remained in its wake. "No, I think I've helped enough for today."

Martin considered pushing, especially because he wanted to know what the hell she meant by _cloak_ and _ripe_ , but Jon looked increasingly thunderous, and the afterimage lingered like a sharp, glittering warning, a little too close for comfort. He had a feeling that things would devolve quickly, if this wasn't over soon. "Well," Martin said, hefting the book a little and injecting a note of finality into his voice, "thanks."

Helen gave him a solemn nod. "You're very welcome, Martin," she said, and all of sudden, she no longer stood in front of them. She leaned in her doorway again, limbs all slightly out of place, smile too wide, fingers too long and pointy and as hard to pin down in a solitary position as ever. "At least _someone_ around here is polite." A few of her fingers wagged in their direction, a confusing, billowing mass of what may have been real and what may have been afterimage. "Until next time, Jon."

The yellow door creaked closed, and when Martin blinked, a nondescript glass-paned door of brown wood stood in its place. The air no longer warped, and the buzzing and trembling that wasn't sound had gone silent.

Jon remained fixed in place for a moment, staring long and hard at the door, before he turned on his heel and marched back towards the car.

"Jon, wait," Martin said, initiating a little jog to keep up.

Jon didn't slow and didn't look back. "Thank you for taking my side, Martin," he said, every word dripping with sarcasm.

"Oh my god," Martin said, clamping down on a long, exasperated sigh. "This isn't the playground. It isn't about sides. What harm is there in just hearing her out? Hasn't she helped you before?"

"Yes, to get my ribs torn out by the Flesh!" Jon snapped, stopping near the car and whirling on Martin. "And look what that got me. She certainly didn't care about helping me when I wanted to save _you_."

Martin stopped too, taking half a step back, but it clicked, suddenly, why Jon was so angry now, the full picture falling into place. It was... sweet, in its own way. "Yeah," Martin said, a little uncertainly. "But... she saved your life, didn't she?" 

"Because the Spiral didn't want me dead," Jon said bitterly. "I wonder why."

"I don't think they think that way," Martin said dubiously. "But, look, okay," he added, when Jon turned away with a huff and started patting his coat down for the keys. He'd insisted on driving because he'd gotten more sleep than Martin -- a rarity -- and Martin had relented. Never mind that Jon's license was expired. "No trusting her corridors, then. Let's agree to that. But... it wasn't bad advice? If we know that you _smell_... detectable, I guess? It sounds like she was just trying to warn you."

Jon found the keys and clicked the button to unlock the doors. It looked like he was contemplating climbing into the driver's seat and sulking, but his shoulders drooped. "Perhaps she was," he said, begrudgingly. "But can you honestly stand there and tell me that you trust the _Distortion_? It lies, Martin."

"I never said anything about trust," Martin pointed out. He wasn't that naive. He knew that Helen was a monster and that she had little to no qualms about taking victims. She wasn't actively trying to kill them, however, and she wasn't the worst company that Martin could imagine. Besides, they needed the book now pressed against Martin's side. "But we don't really have a lot of allies, and we are in way over our heads. Does it hurt to just... keep our options open? Just a tiny bit?"

Jon gave him a long and weary but mostly unreadable look. His eyes traveled down from Martin's face to the book tucked under Martin's arm. "I'm not even sure we should be going back to the Institute now."

Martin hefted the book again, clutching it tighter. Frustration pounded in his ears, because what else were they _supposed_ to do? Die? Let the world end? "Well, I'd love to hear it if you've got any better ideas."

Jon considered this for one unyielding moment, then climbed into the driver's seat without another word. Martin finally let out his exasperation via a sigh and followed, making sure to slide the book snugly under the passenger seat.

* * *

Jon knew that he was in a foul mood and that it made him less than pleasant to be around. He didn't blame Martin for spending so much time with the statements that the last of the afternoon passed and evening fell, that the shadows cast by the fire grew long and wide.

He was in the sitting room again, because the cabin had no heating to hook up to the generator, and it really was so damnably cold today. The fireplace made this the warmest room in the cabin, and Jon had piled more than one blanket on top of him, as he tried to distract himself with some magazines he'd picked up at the shop, having exhausted the books they'd brought and the ones that Daisy had stashed away. Distraction, however, was proving difficult, when his hand and his throat maintained a dull and ever-present ache, hovering and scraping at the edge of his awareness.

Jon wasn't sulking, as he stared at the same words without reading them. He hadn't even eaten yet, because he didn't want to without Martin, but Martin had gone up to the bedroom to listen to some of the tapes and hadn't come back down since. It would have made Jon nervous, had he not _known_ that Martin was fine. It still made him a bit nervous regardless, but he didn't let himself get up. He had to learn to be okay with... distance. With being alone for longer than a few minutes. They couldn't very well handcuff themselves together for the rest of their lives, after all.

When there wasn't much in the way of weak sunlight left to come through the windows, Jon scratched absently at a spot on his arm and then shot up straight as he heard Martin approach. He tried not to toss the blankets aside and jump up off of the sofa in a rush, to limited effect, but his poorly concealed relief slipped away when he saw Martin's face.

At a quick glance, Martin would have looked fine, aside from how deathly serious he was. He must have spent time cleaning up in the bathroom, or else waited long enough before coming down.

Because he'd been crying. Jon could tell. 

Jon's insides took a dive as he stepped forward, and all of his rudderless irritation evaporated, leaving only a mounting worry behind. "What happened?" he asked urgently. "Are you alright?"

Martin stopped. He had a fistful of tapes in one hand and the recorder in the other, and his arm jerked, like he was caught between wanting to hand the tapes to Jon and wanting to fling them as far away as he could. "These aren't statements," he said, a little dazedly, and none of it did anything to ease Jon's worry. "I don't... I don't think Basira sent these? I mean, why would she...?"

Jon moved carefully forward. "What are they?" he asked, trying not to retch on his fear. _Worse_ than statements? Had they done something to Martin? Why had Jon _ever_ trusted his ability to know that Martin was fine when the universe seemed determined to remind him that he understood nothing? Why had he ever agreed to letting Martin go through the statements first?

"They're, um," Martin said, looking a few steps closer to crying again, "just recordings."

Jon pulled up short. "Recordings?"

Martin nodded. "Of us."

Jon frowned, wariness creeping through him and making his hand ache. "What--?" he began. Something spying on them? The tape recorders already did so anyway. Why would Martin look so upset, then? "What do you mean?"

Martin's face blanched, before he looked away and scrubbed furiously at his eyes with the back of the hand that clutched the recorder. "Tim," he said miserably, and Jon's aching throat closed. "Sasha. Us. Just... recordings of us. The good old days," he added, too bitter to be a joke.

Jon stared, his mind blank, his thoughts whiting out to avoid thinking of things that he would rather not. The fire crackled nearby, the steady glow of orange slowly becoming the only light in the room.

Martin stepped forward around Jon and made his way to the coffee table. He set the recorder down, then extracted a tape from his fistful of them and extended it to Jon. "This one's from Gertrude," he said, and now he sounded nervous. "It's for you. It's safe, I promise."

Jon had followed him, more on instinct than conscious thought, but he stopped. He stared at the tape in Martin's outstretched hand, the words echoing between the walls of his mind until they pieced themselves together into something that made sense. From Gertrude? For him?

Slowly, he took the tape and looked between it and Martin and the recorder on the table, all bathed in the orange glow of firelight, but Martin didn't appear scared or urgent. Just sad, tinted with a strain of anxiety, like he was afraid of Jon's reaction.

Jon pressed his lips together, then bent down to insert the tape into the recorder and hit play.

The tape recorder clicked and whirred to life as Jon straightened. " _Right_ ," Gertrude's voice said a moment later. " _If you're listening to this, then it is likely that-- no. Let's not beat around the bush. If you're listening to this, it means I'm dead. And you have been chosen to be my replacement as Head Archivist._ "

* * *

It was thirty minutes and ten seconds before Martin followed Jon outside, and the precision, delivered to him by means supernatural, told Jon that Martin had been timing it deliberately. Half an hour seemed to be as long as Martin could go before getting nervous, sans the time apparently spent listening to the tapes and crying and then trying to look as though he hadn't been. But deliberate timing meant that Martin had wanted to offer space, even though he had become markedly more afraid of being alone, after the Lonely and after yesterday. That did something funny to Jon's chest, on top of the cold weather already stinging in his lungs.

A coat settled over Jon's shoulders, draped gently and carefully, and then Martin sat down next to him, on the cabin's little stoop just outside the door.

That was as far as Jon had been able to convince his own frazzled nerves to let him go, because neither of them would be taking walks any time soon. Maybe never again, but it was nice enough out here. The cabin blocked some of the wind, and it faced west, which meant that Jon had a view of the sun setting down into the highlands. It was nearly gone, half a ring of fire against a hilly green horizon painted black and gray with fog, and the sky above glowed, gold where the clouds didn't cover it and gray where they did.

There was still enough light to see that Martin's eyes fixed on the unopened cigarette pack dangling listlessly from Jon's fingers. Wondering where Jon had gotten it, no doubt. If he'd bought one at the shop, while Martin had been busy deliberating over supplies.

"Couldn't find my lighter," Jon murmured, by way of explanation.

"Oh," Martin said, and he leaned into Jon as he dug around in his pockets. "I pinched it. You know, in case there were any more evil statements."

"Aren't they all evil?" Jon asked dully, as Martin finally extracted the lighter.

Martin hesitated. His eyes flicked between Jon and the lighter, reluctance written into his face. But he extended it, after a moment. "It'll only make your throat hurt worse," he ventured.

"I really don't care," Jon said, before he could stop himself.

He hated himself for that, for the way that Martin flinched with the words, his face creasing with worry. "Jon..." Martin said with a weary sigh, but he didn't lower his hand or pull the lighter back.

 _Sorry,_ Jon almost said, before he remembered that they were trying to avoid using that word quite so much. And perhaps things were better said without words, sometimes. He didn't take the lighter. He stared down at the cigarettes, then slowly handed them over, a mirror to Martin.

Martin blinked. He drew the lighter in, unable to hide the surprise on his face, then took the pack very gently. He pocketed them in his coat, and when he looked up, his worried eyes landed on Jon with every intent of staying there.

Jon looked away towards the golden horizon, but he could feel Martin bracing himself. Martin leaned a little closer into him, pressing their shoulders together. "Jon," he said again. "Please talk to me."

Jon was very tired of talking. Of using his voice to say things. Particularly when they were things grotesque and fearsome and evil, and particularly when he'd never actually wanted to say them. But Martin was warm at his side, and Martin had clocked thirty minutes down to the second in order to give him time to not say anything, and Martin was the only good thing he really had left right now. It was a little too difficult to resist.

Besides, he really might take to clawing at his own skin again, if it didn't leave by way of his mouth.

"How can this possibly work?" Jon asked, the words spilling out of him, and he was too tired to care that his eyes immediately started stinging, that his voice wavered. He almost flexed his burned hand, as if that could give him some measure of control over it, before he remembered that it would upset Martin. "How can I _possibly_ think that I can turn this around and _save the world?_ " He spat it out like a curse. "I've never _saved_ anything. Everything I've done, every time I've tried to help or learn, it's gotten people killed or hurt, it's been for nothing."

Worse than nothing, he thought. All in the service of _apocalypse_. All because he'd been too stupid to see what was really going on. Stupid enough to listen to Elias, to keep digging for answers, instead of running before it was too late. Stupid enough to dig himself into this impossible hole.

"Everything Gertrude did was for _nothing_ ," Jon continued. "All it's done is land us _here_ , and the sole reason the world hasn't gone to hell is because you failed to go for a walk. I-- I couldn't have stopped that on my own." He couldn't even stop himself from _watching_ , in his dreams. "How can you expect me to save or stop anything?"

He stopped himself, then. He didn't mean to sound accusing. He didn't want to. Martin's eyes were wide, glassy with the reflected fire of the dying light, and the last thing Jon wanted to do was make him cry again.

"I know you believe I can do it," Jon said, and his throat ached with the cold, with the effort of speaking, with whatever injury it had sustained from a ritual gone wrong, "and I... I appreciate that, but I don't think that's in the Archivist's cards. I think we're just destined to fail, or else _become_ this... this thing, an _Archive_."

Martin's breath was only just visible in the chill. He looked down at the ground as Jon fell silent, and his hands kneaded together in front of him, between his knees. "I almost didn't give you that tape, you know," he said. "Thought about throwing it out, 'cause I knew you'd react this way. But... I didn't want to be another person who lied to you."

Jon's eyes were wet now. He missed having something to hold, in the absence of the cigarette pack, and he wasn't quite sure how to ask for a hand right now, when his were so stiff and cold. "Except for your CV."

Martin's eyes crinkled, still fixed on the ground. He huffed out a tiny laugh. "And my middle name."

"What?"

Martin peeked up at him with a grimace, amused and slightly guilty. "I don't have one?"

Jon blinked at him. It was such an unexpected thing that it jostled every other thought from his head, that it took him a long moment to process the words. " _What?_ You-- why would you lie about something like that?"

Martin shrugged. "I don't know? I was just trying it out. I wanted to look like a normal employee, and normal people have middle names, so when you asked me with the K stood for, I panicked a bit. It's an initial I use for writing."

"Good god, Martin." Jon's shoulders shook. His eyes were more than wet, as he laughed and as half of his strength fled him and as he slumped into Martin, who immediately lifted an arm and tucked Jon against his side and tucked the coat a little tighter too. Jon kept laughing, and it may have been crying, too. He wasn't certain. It didn't matter. "I _believed_ you. That can't possibly be a real name, I thought, but Martin would never _lie_ to me."

"Sorry," Martin said, shaking with silent laughter of his own, and he shifted on the stoop, so that Jon could lean further into him.

Jon shuddered in his hold, from the cold, from the laughter that turned into dry, stubborn, hiccupping sobs that he didn't want to let loose, that tore themselves from his throat regardless, like everything else seemed to be doing these days. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried. Not like this, shaking and fighting it, futile to stop it. But it was like the earlier words had cracked him open, enough for everything else to spill out.

It went on for a while, long enough for the ring of fire to disappear below the horizon, for the gold-orange glow above the highlands to soften beneath the rolling fog.

"I'm not asking you to do this by yourself," Martin said finally, when Jon was still and exhausted and no longer wracked with tears. His hand painted wandering strokes across Jon's back. "We agreed, remember? Together. Maybe-- maybe you couldn't have stopped it on your own. But I could never have killed Peter or gotten myself out of that place. We have to... we have to _try_. Together. I mean..." his voice grew smaller, more hesitant, vulnerable and scared in a way that made Jon's heart ache, "what else can we _do_?"

Jon's arm had found its way around Martin in order to cling to him, and his grip tightened. Run, he thought. Vanish. He wanted to run and take Martin with him and hide somewhere far away. He wanted to keep the only good thing he had left, before he risked losing that too.

But he knew, bone deep and awful and static, that no matter how many times he gouged his eyes out and they grew back, no matter what else he tried to free himself from the Beholding, it would never work. Not when he was _marked_ by so much more than the Eye. There would never be a place where they were truly safe. And even if there was, even if Jon could survive a severance from the Archivist or die in the attempt... someone else would walk unknowing and unprepared into that role if Magnus wasn't eliminated.

 _God_ , it could have been _Sasha_...

Another thing that might have been a sob slipped out, quiet and shuddering, but Jon sucked in a breath and brought it under control. He'd already spent all day making Martin worry about him, like Martin hadn't just spent a good deal of time crying by himself. "Nothing," Jon said, and his voice struggled out hoarse past the aches and the raw edge of tears. "You're right. I'm sorry. You're right. We can try."

He felt Martin relax, heard Martin's warm voice in his ear, only the slightest bit shaky. "We will. And for the record, you trying to-- to help and learn?" Martin added. "It's not for nothing. Those are good things, Jon, it's not your fault that Elias twisted them all up. And you're not a _thing_ ," he finished, rather forcefully, leaving no room for argument. "Okay?"

"Okay," Jon echoed. He didn't know if he believed that, if Martin found him convincing, but he was too tired to tackle it, and there was something else he still wished to address, while the moment felt appropriate. "And, ah..." Jon added in turn, and he was well-aware that he was changing the subject, and yet he forged on awkwardly, "you seemed... upset, earlier. You don't have to hide it. I'm not going to fall apart if you do."

Martin stiffened again, so much that Jon feared that he'd said the wrong thing, but Martin's hand on his back took up its aimless stroking once more. "I know," Martin sighed. "I'm... fine, really? It just took me by surprise, is all. Hearing, well..." He didn't finish the sentence.

Jon didn't fully believe that, but he knew it was a deliberate wall, and he knew that attempts to venture over it wouldn't be welcomed. If Martin timed his interventions by the half hour, then Jon could back off, could ignore the hateful part of him that was _curious_ despite himself. It was his own concern, and it was the attention of something much deeper layering into that, and he wasn't quite sure if he knew where to delineate the two.

Martin pressed a kiss to the side of Jon's head. "We should eat. And shower. Don't know about you, but I feel pretty gross."

"Never," Jon said, shifting his head to say it into Martin's neck.

Martin laughed, breathy and unsteady still, and pushed him away. "Nope," he said, and the last of the evening light made him look so terribly radiant that Jon's eyes might have gotten a little misty again. "None of that until we're clean."


	5. Chapter 5

Jon was awake. The vein of knowing in his mind informed him that it was two minutes after four o'clock in the morning, and he spent a moment vaguely surprised at how uncharitable he felt towards the hour. Four o'clock had been a late night or an early morning, more often than not, except that it was astonishingly easy to wake up one day and find that one's mind and preference had changed. That perhaps Jon liked sleeping a little later, or sleeping at all, if someone else lay close.

Even if it meant, well... dreams.

His hand was stinging and throbbing again, sharp and deep, and his head felt... thick. Like he was coming down with a bad case of congested thoughts. A whine was building between his ears, fixed and small, but it would grow into a roar soon enough. Greater stirrings of _hunger_ , of a kind that he couldn't easily ignore. Jon still tried his best to, but there was no ignoring the hand. No doubt it had woken him, and the longer he lay there and guiltily tried to sink back into sleep -- reasoning that he likely wouldn't be asleep long enough for the dreams to come back anyway -- the more the pain seemed to sharpen, invading every corner of his mind.

Martin was sound asleep beside him, an arm and a leg thrown protectively around Jon, face creased and eyes twitching. Jon didn't want to wake him. He didn't want to leave the warmth of the bed, tucked between Martin and the covers and shielded from the chill. Safe, a delirious nighttime corner of his mind said. It was safe, and he didn't want to let Martin out of his sight, didn't want to shut himself into an empty room, alone, even if it was just the nearby toilet.

But his hand kept _hurting_ , and a mounting need to take a look at it built up behind Jon's eyes, rattling through his brain like a fire alarm. The two desires warred, catching him in their sorry middle, and Jon was determined not to give in, not to rouse Martin from his much-needed sleep just because he couldn't handle a little pain.

Jon shuddered and shifted, and the pressure behind his eyes grew, dull like a headache and sharp like a claw. He bit down on the inside of his mouth and then raised a hand to trace it across Martin's cheek. If he tried to slip out of bed, and Martin awoke to find him gone, it would not go over well. Even as he reached out, Jon told himself to stop, to lay there and bear it and go back to sleep, but he just... he needed to get up. To unwrap his hand and see.

Martin woke with a start and a gasp. "Jon?" he murmured, eyes blinking rapidly as he automatically tried to lift his head, his hand clawing at Jon's shirt. "What-- are you--?"

"It's okay," Jon said softly, and he had to clear his throat to get it past the rough and ruined edges still there. "I'm going to the toilet. I wanted to make sure you knew."

"Oh," Martin said, some of the alarm fading away as his blinking turned heavy. He let go of Jon's shirt. "Thanks. D'you need me...?"

"I'm alright," Jon said, though he wasn't. "I'll be right back."

He didn't close the door. It took more willpower than he expected, to tear himself away from Martin and cross the cold room, and flicking on the light did nothing to make him less jumpy. It made no sense. It wasn't like he was going far, and it wasn't like Martin couldn't be there in a second or two, if Jon called out. And yet Jon's nerves would not settle, as he leaned against the sink and began to unwrap the bandages and peel the gauze away from his aching right hand.

Under the dim light, the burn looked no different than it had yesterday morning. No different from last night, when he'd changed the bandages.

It looked _no different_. Not worse, but not better.

He'd tried to take off a finger several times, not so long ago, and it had only taken it a few seconds to reattach. A few hours, for all signs of injury to fade completely.

Jon stared down at the ruined skin as sickly, curious pressure pulsed behind his eyes. His teeth were chattering, and every so often he was seized with the need to scratch at his arms or his face. But only, he thought, at the spots where the skin was puckered with circular scars. They'd itched for a while, after he'd gotten them, until at last that particular sensation had faded. They'd still been prone to aching from time to time, as had his hand. As had his entire body, really, at some point. Surely this was just more of the same.

He had to take a breath, shivering and nervous, before he looked more closely. The scars from the worms didn't look _fresh_ , exactly, but... perhaps he was only imagining it, that they no longer looked old. They were reddened where he'd been scratching, and he clung to that as an explanation, until he examined each and every one in the mirror and saw that they were all tinged red.

Jon's hands scrabbled at his throat as he crowded in closer to the mirror, trying to see, to _see_. The scar there looked... fine. A little red, but fine, even though his throat still _hurt_ in ways that couldn't be seen.

After a moment, he peeled his nightshirt away from his shoulders and examined the scar there too, the one from Michael. It branched in ways that made no sense, that couldn't have possibly been left by a single long finger sharper than a knife, except that it had been. Melanie hadn't left one, but was he imagining it, that his left shoulder twinged as he examined it?

The branching scar didn't itch yet, but it was reddened. Red, like he'd only gotten it a few weeks ago.

Jon's thoughts hurt, sluggish with the onset of hunger and racing with the swelling of fear. He landed on the edge of the tub when his legs no longer wanted to hold him up, and he _had_ to be imagining it, that his right leg twinged like he had only just had a corkscrew twisted into it. He was... no, he couldn't let himself start hyperventilating, even though he couldn't catch his breath, even though air struggled to get into his lungs, like it was being snatched away by the enormous pressure of a rushing fall, like it was being crushed out of him.

He couldn't. He needed to breathe and not worry Martin, and he needed to stop overreacting. This was... the burn just required time to heal. The old wounds were just flaring up, like they sometimes did.

Hands found his shoulders, and Jon flinched. The hands left, and Jon immediately missed them, immediately felt something phantom and fleeting and sharp lance through his shoulders. It took him a moment to work out that he'd dropped his head into his hands, and that it hurt and scraped nauseatingly, putting pressure on an exposed burn like that, and that Martin was crouched in front of him, eyes wide and frantic.

" _Jon_ ," Martin said, so scared that the thick fog in Jon's head cleared, enough that he could _think_. He hadn't wanted to upset or disturb Martin, and yet he had. "Say something, please, just say something."

"I--" Jon began. _I'm fine, I'm alright, it's nothing._ But Martin would know, the longer Jon kept his hand wrapped, the redder the scars became. If they got worse. If they started bleeding or festering or whatever awful possibility that Jon's mind was all too willing to conjure for him. "It's not healing."

Martin knelt before him, looking up with panic fading but a deeper worry settling in. His hands were curled in front of him, as if he wasn't sure what to do with them, and his eyes flicked to Jon's hand. He swallowed, accompanied by a flash of needless guilt. "Maybe it just needs time? Like a normal burn?"

Jon laughed, shaky and humorless. He wanted to believe that, so very badly. "No, it's... it's just not. And the others, they're... they've been _itching_. Something's wrong."

Martin looked visibly nauseous. "You _know_ that," he said, not a question, but Jon nodded, and air left Martin in a rush. He rocked back on his heels, and Jon could almost see the gears turning in his mind. Almost. Jon _wanted_ to see. His own thoughts might be less fuzzy, might march less quickly towards a gnawing hunger, if he found something there. If he tasted the fear rolling off of Martin in palpable waves.

Jon shuddered as he swallowed it back.

"Okay," Martin said, trying very obviously to sound calm. He stood and retrieved supplies from the cupboard, quick and purposeful. "We don't know what it means yet." Carefully, he measured out the right amount of gauze and bandage and then grabbed the antibiotic cream and a hand towel from near the sink. "Do you _know_ anything else about it?"

Jon tried, as Martin wet the towel and knelt down again, gently tugging Jon's hand towards him. He tried, as Martin worked quickly and silently. He knew that the burn was not healing. That it would not heal. That the other scars, visible and not so visible, were beginning to react similarly. He remembered that he'd suspected it, yesterday morning, and yet he hadn't registered that as _knowing_. He knew that it was because of the botched ritual. He knew that something had... _changed_ within him, that afternoon. But the whole was always greater than the sum of its parts, and though he could see those parts, more or less, he didn't know what he was looking at.

"I don't understand," Jon said, when his hand was bandaged snugly again. "I don't understand anything."

Martin nodded, slow and thoughtful as he smoothed down the bandages. "Then... do you know if it's going to be a problem, at least?" he asked. "I mean, beyond hurting."

Jon thought. _Looked._ He wanted to peel the bandages back and keep looking at the ravaged skin -- or something else did. As if that would fill up the hollow emptiness beginning to settle into something that wasn't his stomach. As if that would quiet the whine between his ears. "It won't kill me," he said, certain, and perhaps that was less of a relief than it should have been.

"That's good," Martin said, markedly relaxing. His hands still hovered, uncertain, until the fingers of Jon's good hand flexed in invitation, and Martin immediately latched onto them with one of his own. He rose to his feet and pulled, still so gentle, and guided Jon up.

"You were right," Jon said, with a nod at the bandage roll nearby. "We do need that much."

Martin's face flickered with an attempt at a smile. It didn't last very long. "Are you _sure_ painkillers won't work?" he asked, like he knew what the answer would be but felt compelled to voice the question anyway.

"They won't," Jon said, grim and certain, and he couldn't make that piece fit into the whole either, even though it meant watching more lines of anxiety carve themselves into Martin's face.

Martin stopped asking, then, as he helped Jon to pin his hair up, but the anxiety didn't leave, a tangible, inviting thing all too apparent to the clawing hunger behind Jon's eyes.

* * *

"Maybe eating would help?" Martin suggested, down in the kitchen.

It was too early for breakfast, the kitchen colored in the unease of artificial light, bulwark against the gray darkness behind the curtains. Jon sat at the table, his bandaged hand held stiff and awkward, draped across the table near the tape recorder. He stared hollowly at nothing in particular and only belatedly seemed to register that Martin had asked a question, as he blinked and frowned and lifted his head. "How?"

"I mean statements," Martin said, carefully. He had the kettle in hand, but so far, he hadn't done anything with it. He wasn't really sure if it was what Jon _needed_.

Jon couldn't hide his flinch or the way his face darkened. "I'm... not sure that's a good idea."

"You're hungry," Martin said, because he could see it, all too clearly. Of course Jon was hungry. It seemed that he always was, nowadays, but it was a question of degree, and Martin needed to do... something. Needed to try something, because Jon's hand looked exactly as it had when Martin had watched the scar _cook_ before his eyes. "Normal recovery needs rest and food, right? Maybe you just need _your_ food. And that would help it heal?"

Jon's undamaged hand curled into a fist. He didn't look at Martin, his eyes on the table. "It's not going to heal."

"Then maybe it would keep it from getting worse," Martin insisted. "We need to see if _something_ helps, even a little, and statements would make sense? I've double checked four of them already, front to back. They're safe. Normal statements. Can you... can you just try one?"

That was as far as he would push it, he decided, because Jon looked like he wanted to fold in on himself and disappear. But Jon didn't say anything, at first. He kept frowning down at the table, and only his chest moved, his breathing just as stiff and tinged with pain as the rest of him. It went on for a while, and Martin was about to tell him to forget about it for now, when: "Alright," Jon muttered, still not looking at Martin.

It only took Martin a moment to set the kettle aside and fetch the duffel bag. He'd marked the ones he'd read over with sticky notes, but he skimmed through the one on top for a third time, just in case. It was as normal as could be, relatively, an account of a storm that was almost certainly Vast-related, and yet he tried not to let his trepidation bleed forth when he handed the statement to Jon, and Jon took it gingerly.

"I'll be right here," Martin said. He settled down on the stool across the table from Jon, awareness of the lighter in his pocket burning a hole in his thoughts, as Jon set the statement down and reached for the tape recorder.

Jon's hand hovered above the recorder for a long moment, until he mustered up the will to lift it and draw it in close. His eyes were on the first page of the statement, skimming like Martin had, and he had to brace himself before he hit record.

The tape recorder clicked to life. It had a functional and empty tape within -- they always did when needed, these days, no matter how many times they were used -- but Jon didn't start speaking. Silence whirred by, as Jon stared down at the statement. He was no longer skimming. His eyes glazed over, like he was trying not to see it, and his hand was taut around the recorder, wracked with infinitesimal shivers.

Silence continued to tick by, and Martin didn't dare break it.

Jon breathed in, but didn't breathe out.

He hit record again, abruptly, and set the recorder down so hard and fast that the plastic might have acquired a dent or two. "I can't," Jon said, quick and shaky and miserable, and he shoved the statement towards Martin with something approaching panic. "I'm sorry, I can't. I need-- I need time."

"It's okay," Martin said at once, and he tried not to be too fast about snatching the statement up and stuffing it away. It felt... bad. Bad that he'd even asked, Martin thought, watching as Jon shoved the tape recorder away too, face twitching with misery. But the statements left Jon unhappy enough, without even more fear piled on top. It was like being afraid of tea, like tea could _hurt_. Like something you needed to live was personally out to harm you. The Eye probably liked that, probably found it even more _tasty_ , and Martin took a moment to hate it, as he kicked the duffel bag aside. "I shouldn't have asked."

"It's a good idea," Jon said, unsteady, kneading the edge of the table with his good hand. "I just--"

"Jon," Martin said. "It's _okay_."

Jon fell silent, breathing hard and scratching at his arm, and Martin sat there feeling worse and worse, because Jon was _hungry_ and _not healing,_ and it would only get worse with time, and Martin didn't know what to _do_.

"You could take a statement from me," Martin said, the words tumbling out in a rush, and Jon froze. "No apocalypses up here, I don't think," Martin added, tapping at the side of his head. "Just me."

Jon shook his head. "I can't," he said again, and there was something final in the words, something that said _not ever_.

"Why not?" Martin asked, dread squeezing at his guts. Not because he was particularly keen to dwell on anything that had happened to him across the past few years, but because Jon couldn't go much longer without _something_ , and he could barely even touch a written statement right now, and he'd been all too eager to starve himself.

"I can't do that to you," Jon said, and his eyes dropped to the tape recorder, the barest flicker of an angry snarl passing across his face as he frowned at it.

"You wouldn't be _doing_ anything to me," Martin said. "It's an offer. We talked about this. You _need_ to eat, Jon. Sooner, not later. Why--"

"Because, Martin!" Jon snapped, all in a rush, and Martin's mouth slammed shut. "I can feel it! I _know_ how scared you are, and you don't even know how much of me thinks that's _appealing_." He spat the words out with disgust. "Because I _want_ to take a statement from you! I _want_ it, and you can say that I'm not a monster all you want, but you _know_ that there is nothing human about that. About how much I want a statement from you."

Martin couldn't move, could hardly breathe, as the words sank into him. It wasn't exactly a shock, even if the intensity of it had him wanting to crawl out of his skin a bit, but he couldn't understand why Jon was unable to see the clear conclusion here: that he could say no to what he wanted. "That doesn't scare me," Martin said at last, barely able to keep the quaver out of his voice.

"That's a lie," Jon said automatically, then winced.

Martin let out a shaky exhale. "I told you not to do that," he said, as calmly as he could, even though he knew that it was an accident, that sometimes Jon couldn't help it.

Jon reached up to rub at his forehead, as if he was physically trying to hold it all back, and he closed his eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said, eyes flicking open to stare dully at the table. It looked as though he was trying to find words that resisted him, his jaw twitching as he worked them free. "But it-- it doesn't hurt me, that you're scared of me." _That's a lie,_ Martin thought. "I understand--"

" _God,_ Jon, you are such a fucking--" Martin cut himself off, breathing deeply. But he forgot about trying to speak delicately, because his heart kept pounding loud and afraid, and Jon just didn't _get_ it. "I'm not scared _of_ you, I'm scared _for_ you. I don't know what's going to happen to you, and it scares the hell out of me!" It wasn't quite a shout, but close enough. "I don't-- I don't know what's going to happen to _me_ , if I lose you. It's not like I have all that much left, you know! So yes, I am _scared_ of what will happen to _me_. So I need _you_ to be _okay_ , because right now, it still feels like the Lonely's right on my heels, and I--"

But Martin stopped, choking the words down. If he went any further, he'd lose it completely, and he couldn't-- he just couldn't.

Jon blinked at him, eyes wide. "Oh, Martin..." he said, soft and wondering, and Martin very nearly lost it anyway.

Martin reached up to scrub at the treacherous stinging in his eyes. It was stupid, so stupid. But the Institute had ruined his life, not to mention Jon's life, and he just... didn't have anything else. There was a very great possibility that he might never get the chance at a normal life again, and somehow, that was less worrisome than the idea that he could lose _this,_ when he had only just left that empty fog behind and sometimes he still felt so _cold_. "But I shouldn't be putting that on you."

"No, it's..." Something contemplative and deeply troubled was etched into Jon's face, but his voice remained soft. "I've never... it's fine." Martin almost asked what he'd been about to say. Almost. "More than fine. I understand completely. Is it terrible of me to say that I feel the same?"

Martin laughed. It wasn't really a laugh, and it rather hurt, as it left him. He let his head sink down onto folded arms, sighing, but something warmed within him all the same, a steady flicker against the October cold. "We're a mess."

"I think we have some fairly good excuses for that," Jon said, wry. The look he gave Martin was piercing and yet not uncomfortable. "You're more than the Lonely, you know."

Martin only sighed again. He didn't want to be having this conversation at all, except that Jon had a way of prying all kinds of things out of him, no compulsion necessary.

Determination entered Jon's expression, and he hesitated only a moment longer, then reached out and swept the tape recorder up.

* * *

There was none of that terrible fear in Jon's face, as they reclined on the sofa in the sitting room after breakfast, as the fire glowed and snapped nearby. No fear of being hurt, only of hurting, but Martin could do something about that. Jon leaned back into the crook of the sofa, because Martin had given him a little push, and Martin thought that Jon made for a pretty comfortable pillow, bony angles and all. He was careful not to jostle Jon too much as he settled down, mindful of the damaged hand, of the reason it was re-injured in the first place, but Jon only pulled him in closer with a dissatisfied grunt.

And Martin had to admit, it was much warmer this way.

"Right," Jon said, clicking the tape recorder on. "Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding time spent in the hallways of the Distortion. Recorded direct from subject, October 20, 2018. Statement," he paused, steadied himself, "statement begins." His left hand held the tape recorder tightly, the arm draped around Martin's shoulders. His bandaged hand rested lower, and the air crackled like the fire did, when he spoke. It tickled against Martin's hair. "Tell me what happened to you and-- and Tim."

Jon knew it secondhand already, but Martin had never given it in a statement like this. His previous account had been clinical and short and embellished only by his natural inclination to add flourish to the words, and even then, it had been lacking. He knew why, now.

As far as fear powers went, this one could have been worse, minus the nightmares. But Martin didn't get those, and there was something freeing about just talking, with no second guessing, no stumbling. Something freeing, about words able to capture a depth of feeling that would not be possible to name otherwise. Something freeing, about having someone on the other end whose sole intent was to listen.

That didn't mean that it didn't hurt, every time he said Tim's name. That he didn't feel the confusion, the dazed fear, the twisting, nauseating monotony of wandering and wandering and wandering. But he'd spent so long feeling numb and distant that feeling that fear for the first time again was welcome too, in its own way, even if the words seemed to drain out of him and leave a hollow pit of weariness in their wake.

It was... controlled. A safe kind of fear, when it was just him and Jon. And that was better than... well, any other kind he'd felt, lately.

When at last Martin had finished and there was no more fear left to give, the tape recorder clicked above him after a low, "Statement ends," and Jon was silent.

Martin shifted so that he could look up into Jon's face. He looked... better. Less exhausted, less strung out. Healthier color all around, his face less pinched, a clearer look in his eyes. And Martin had done that. Had made things better, even just a bit.

"How's your hand?" Martin asked.

He felt the hand move, near his side. "It's the same," Jon said, quiet.

"Oh." Martin had tried not to get his hopes up, really. He sagged against Jon all the same. "Guess I was wrong."

Jon shifted, as if to pull him even closer, though that didn't seem possible. "Not at all," he said. "I'm feeling... much better. Everything still hurts, but... it feels like I can handle it, now. My head's clear." A bit of wonder crept into his voice. "Thank you. Do you-- are you alright?"

"Yeah," Martin said, and he meant it with feeling -- terrible, wonderful feeling. He was tired, yeah. Uneasy, sure. But that was nothing new, and it was the safe kind. The controlled kind, a relief in its own strange way. "So... it works, then? Me giving you statements? I wasn't sure, 'cause I also... _work_ for the Eye, I guess, and maybe it wouldn't find that as tasty as someone new."

Jon's breath tickled against Martin's head. "No, it-- it works. Ah... I believe it's..." Martin still had his head tilted up enough to see that Jon was starting to look vaguely embarrassed, "it helps, that my own feelings color each statement. It's... something Helen told me." His voice flattened out. "Like _seasoning_. You are... obviously important to me, and what I said earlier, about... about _wanting_ , and how... repulsive that is, that... makes it work very well, actually... it doesn't make it right, of course, but--"

"Jon," Martin said, and Jon stopped talking. "That's... actually, that's a bit romantic?"

Jon's voice was very flat when he said, "What."

"I mean," Martin said, already trying to stifle a laugh as Jon angled a frown down at him, "what, my words are _extra tasty_ to some eldritch fear god because you love me?"

Jon's frown became spectacular. "That is _not_ romantic."

"It is a bit," Martin said. His laugh petered out quickly, wearily, but it had been a long few days. Jon was looking better by a margin and was giving him the patented Jon Sims face of disapproval, which would have stung long ago but was now something that Martin loved so very much. If he didn't laugh, he'd cry, and the former was much preferable.

Jon relaxed, after a moment, something like a smile settling instead. He leaned his face against Martin's head and said, "Thank you," again, the words riding out on a soft sigh.

"Welcome," Martin said. "You should be good for a while, right? Since it was a live statement?"

"As long as nothing else goes wrong," Jon answered, dubious.

Yeah... the chances of that weren't great, but Martin made a deliberate effort to set the matter aside for now. Jon was... okay. They were okay. It had to be enough, right now, and they would deal with the scars, if those got worse. But only then.

Besides, it was still only morning. They should at least have the rest of the day to themselves, if nothing else, and Martin was of the opinion that they needed to take what they could get, when they could get it. When he climbed up off of the sofa, a little reluctantly, the lack of Jon's warmth meant that the cold rushed back in.

Jon didn't look too happy about it either, still reclined and looking entirely too cozy to lean against, but Martin knew that he wouldn't be able to tear himself away later to get things done, if he got too comfortable now.

"I was going to see about getting the car packed," Martin said. "Just so that's done."

"I'll help," Jon said, pushing himself up.

Martin reached out and offered him a hand. He didn't need to, especially now that Jon looked a lot more steady and clear-eyed, but he liked to. Jon set the recorder down on the coffee table and popped the tape out, then let Martin pull him up. He didn't sway or look a few seconds from keeling over, when Martin let go, and Martin took a moment to admire him. To bask in the fact that he'd been able to do something concrete about a problem.

"I'll start packing up anything that can go in the car and stay there," Martin said, as Jon tried not to shiver in the wintry air that the fire couldn't entirely banish. "Could you pull out anything we still need?"

Jon nodded. He moved in one direction and Martin moved in another, even though something at the back of Martin's mind didn't want him to. It felt too much like leaving the cabin to go for a fateful walk, even though he'd only be stepping out to the car for a moment. He figured it was a relatively normal reaction to... well, everything, but he'd have to get past it, at some point. He had to learn to be okay with letting Jon out of sight.

The tape recorder clicked on, just before Martin reached the front door.

He froze. He heard Jon's footsteps cease too, on the stairs.

"Shit," Jon's voice said, a faraway echo.

Martin's blood turned to numb ice in his veins, and his heart pounded so wildly in his chest that it hurt. His insides plummeted as the tape recorder whirred, an innocuous sound that said _danger_.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

Martin didn't know what compelled him to wrench the door open, after that, but he did, because he knew that whatever it was lay beyond, and he needed to see it before it saw them.

The car was gone. The overgrown dirt path that ran up towards the dirt road was gone. The highlands were a hazy shadow, fading away as if they'd never been, enveloped by a growing mist of silent gray nothingness that stretched out in all directions.

Martin's hand fell nerveless from the door handle as he stared. He couldn't feel the faint warmth of the fire anymore, and his voice was distant, weak, barely able to make it out of his throat. "Jon," he croaked, with every bit of strength that he had left. "Jon!"

The running footsteps behind him were faint, muffled, eclipsed by the fog rolling in.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

There was no reflection beneath Jon. The water hardly stirred when touched, but it _was_ water. Jon was certain of that, though he wasn't sure why. He was certain of his name, too, and a sense of... self, he supposed. He remembered things, long ago and far away, and they concerned him. Point A, then, to Point B, now, with himself as the connecting thread. He knew that, and it meant that he was himself. He was Jon.

He was cold. It was cold here, but it wasn't bad. He was distantly aware that his hand was wrapped up in bandage and gauze because it had been so _hot_. It had hurt. The things he remembered, they hurt too. But his hand didn't hurt now, and the things he remembered, they didn't have to hurt.

He was on his knees, on the glassy water that _was_ water but held him aloft and didn't reflect anything. Strange. He didn't remember how he'd gotten here.

Jon pushed himself up to his feet, his limbs stiff with chill, and became aware that his other hand was occupied. His fingers were wrapped around a tape recorder like it was the most precious thing in the world, and he couldn't remember when he'd picked it up, either. Jon stood there with no reflection beneath him and stared down at the whirring tape recorder in his hand, something unpleasant twinging at the back of his head.

This hurt, too. This thing hurt him. So many things had hurt him.

But there was nothing here that could. Nothing left, except this.

Jon became aware that fog drifted over the still, silvery water. It rolled all around him, in all directions as far as his eyes could see, and he knew that it would gladly swallow anything else he threw into its depths. It wanted to. It wanted to protect him. He hit a button to stop the whirring and lifted the tape recorder, as if to hurl it into the mist, and--

It clicked back on.

" _Oh,_ " the recorder said, a small voice that crackled above Jon's head. " _Hello. What are you? Do I-- do I know you? Can't... can't tell through the fog sometimes. You feel... not friendly. Familiar? Shape of you in my hand... I talk to you sometimes, don't I? We talk. What do we-- do we say? Can't quite..._ "

The voice faded out, as Jon slowly lowered his hand, as recognition tugged at his gut like the sharp curve of a lure on a line.

"Martin," he whispered, a laborious effort just to speak. The name shivered through the air like an icy sigh.

He remembered. The fog rolled and spilled, twisting itself into new shapes and solidifying on either side of him. It lay before him like a promenade, opening a path to follow. Martin was here, it said. Just ahead.

Jon started walking. The water carried no reflection and didn't ripple.

Martin was here. Not quite okay, but safe. Jon knew that. _Safe,_ he thought, longing, craving. Martin had been hurt too, but it didn't have to be that way anymore. Because Jon's hand didn't hurt, and his skin didn't itch. He could breathe, in and out, with nothing to crush the air out of him or steal it away. He wouldn't die here. There was no one here to look at him with disgust and suspicion. There was no one here to lie.

There was no one here at all. Just him. And Martin.

The tape recorder talked, in and out and in again.

" _I don't think there's anyone else here,_ " the recorder -- Martin -- said. " _Probably never has been. Not that I can remember, at least._ "

 _I'm here,_ Jon thought, too tired to speak. _I'm coming._

" _Is it my house?_ " Martin asked. It was, Jon wanted to tell him. This was... this was theirs. This was _their_ place. It wanted them here. Wanted them safe. It was Jon's to take, to give to Martin. It was Martin's to inhabit, a place where Jon could keep him safe, where Martin wouldn't have to be afraid of losing Jon. " _It must be, right? It must be, 'cause... why else would I be here? You don't just wander around other people's houses alone. You don't just... you don't just... just wander. No. What, what was I saying? I don't... Do you remember? You store them, I suppose. Keep, keep stuff locked up in those little wheels. That's memory, isn’t it?_ "

Something solidified in the fog ahead. A shadow, large and welcoming, growing in shape and contour as Jon approached. He didn't quite hear what Martin said next, until the sound came in again, the closer Jon got.

" _Oh_ ," Martin said, the tape recorder whirring at Jon's side. " _Oh. Hello! What are you? I can't quite... see. You feel... familiar. Do I know you? Do we talk?_ "

It was a cabin. Their cabin. It was... happy. The memories here didn't hurt, like the others did. Most of them, anyway. Jon's eyes swept over it, until he could make out the stoop and the door, and he stepped forward, relieved and eager. _Home,_ he thought. Because Martin was here, and they were safe.

" _I met someone, did I tell you?_ " Martin said. " _He's... I don’t know. I like him. He doesn't like me, though. Not really. I don't blame him. I don't like me sometimes, and I am me._ "

Jon stopped with his hand on the door handle, and something tugged at him again, in some faraway back corner of his skull. This... something wasn't quite right, he thought. Something in Martin's voice wasn't right, and that was... that was unacceptable. Martin needed to be safe. They needed to be safe.

They would be safe here, the fog said, and the door handle was wonderfully cool and inviting beneath Jon's hand. Alone, together, in the quiet. No one to hurt them. Nothing to burn and crush and stab and burrow and judge. The whole world could be like that, if only Jon reached for it.

If only he opened the door.

Martin's voice came in and out and in again, static, nervous, words missing that Jon couldn't quite catch. " _His face, I don't... This isn't my house... I don't like it here... so cold... There are mirrors, but no..._ "

Jon let go of the handle, and it was difficult, to take a step back. Like the fog was congealing around him, thick and cajoling. He stepped off of the stoop, shuffling his feet behind him, one after the other, and his weight against the water beneath him wasn't quite steady, like it had lost some of its strange solidity.

" _Not mirrors,_ " Martin said, small and scared. " _Someone's standing in them, but I don't... I don't know who. That face, who is... who is that?_ "

The water beneath Jon was silvery and uniform, when he looked down. It didn't ripple, didn't move. He had no reflection.

" _Oh!_ " Martin said. " _Oh, hello._ "

Martin was in there. He... he _needed_ Jon. He needed to be safe. But... this wasn't right. It wasn't... was it the _right_ kind of safe? Jon didn't quite know, but it was on the tip of his tongue, a tingling fizz of static. He just had to... think. Just had to reach... not for the door, no, but for... something else.

" _Hmm,_ " Martin said. " _Can't quite make out a... a tape recorder? Can't remember the last time I used a... hmm. Blast from the past! Familiar... Well, it's good to have someone to talk to. Otherwise you can go strange... you... I, I don't... hmm. What was I saying?_ "

Jon took another step back, away from the shadowy cabin. Then another. It was hard, so hard, and he didn't want to. He couldn't leave Martin. He couldn't. But he transferred the tape recorder from left hand to right and squeezed it tight, and it hurt. It hurt, but he... he needed to go. This wasn't right.

He turned around and put his back to the cabin, movement slow and sluggish and a struggle, and the water rippled beneath his feet. Martin was... Martin was talking, but Jon took another step, forward this time, and another, and the water rippled with each one.

There was no more promenade of fog to guide him. It blanketed the air all around instead, thick and viscous and _cold_. Jon shivered. He kept walking, until there was nothing. Nothing but gray and silver. Nothing but fog and Martin's voice.

" _I-- I mean I tried to be a good person, but we're really up against it, and I..._ " Martin faded out and in and out, and Jon walked. " _I'll say something stupid and then..."_ Out and in. _"What am I doing? I can't afford a place like this! I need money, not just for me, but for..._ " In and out. " _Wait. Wait, no. It is... it is just me, isn't it? It's always been just me._ "

Martin needed him. Martin wasn't safe. Jon squeezed the tape recorder, and it hurt. There was... a burn under the bandages. That was why it hurt. Why it was hot. Why the cold felt so good, except it didn't. It wasn't. It wasn't _right_.

" _No, that's not right. I'm not alone, no! Jon?_ " Jon's footsteps wavered. The rippling stopped. " _Jon! Jon, I'm here. Can you hear me? I can't... It's-- it's this place, I-- Where are you, I need you, I need..._ " A bitter laugh. " _I need you, Jon._ "

Jon was on his knees again. He didn't remember how he'd gotten there. He didn't like how much it _hurt_ , a lancing pain somewhere beneath his ribs. He didn't... he didn't have _enough_ ribs. What a strange thought. Was that why it hurt so much, here on his knees?

" _Please don't leave me,_ " Martin begged. He was starting to cry. " _I can't do this on my own. Please._ " A sob broke through. " _I'm not enough on my own._ "

Jon could barely lift his head, but the recorder hurt beneath his fingers, and the edges of his tongue sparked and popped. Something was lodged between his frontal bone and his eyes, uncomfortable and unwilling to dislodge. Martin wasn't behind him. Martin was ahead. Something was just... something was lying. It wanted something.

It wanted him to be safe.

 _No,_ Jon thought, and Martin's voice came again, " _It's this fog, you know? Makes it so hard to see._ " Not safe, not safe. Not the right kind of safe.

He needed to find the right way. There would be no... no path, no promenade. He knew that. He didn't know how. But he knew that he was Jon, and that Martin was not behind him, and he squeezed the tape recorder, and it hurt. Something sparked and popped behind his eyes. His skin itched.

Jon climbed to his feet, slow and aching, and kept walking.

His footsteps sent ripples out in all directions, and his passing stirred the air ever so gently. The fog moved away with it. The fog moved back in. He only caught snatches of what Martin said, as if distance made it harder and harder for the recorder to pick it up. But that wasn't... that wasn't true. Martin wasn't far. Distance wasn't... it was different here. Not this way and that, not up and down. It just... looked that way. For some reason.

" _I know she loves me,_ " Martin said. " _I know she does._ " Out and in. " _Sometimes I wonder if I forget things on purpose._ "

Jon kept walking. The ripples kept spreading.

" _Somewhere, someone that... there are people who trust me, people who love me, so why can't I remember them?_ " Martin's voice was pained, panicking. " _Why, why can't I see them? Sasha."_ Jon faltered. The ripples were jagged, uneven, and the fog caressed him insistently. _"Yeah! Yeah, yeah, I remember. There was... there was Sasha! I can see her face! No-- no, wait, no. Not, not Sasha, some-- something else._ "

Something... something terrible happened there. Something terrible _would_ have happened there, even if Jon hadn't been there and hadn't let the other thing happen. He couldn't quite place it, but he wanted to know what it was, and it kept his footsteps steady, even through Martin's next few tearful words.

" _The only people who could ever stand to be around me are gone. Even from my mind. Where is this place? So cold. And I can't see anything through all this... fog._ " Out and in, in and out, time stuttering and skipping and hiding some of Martin's words from him. " _And then I met Jon, and I... Jon. Jon? Jon? Jon, I'm here! Jon, I-- I think I'm lost, I think... I don't..._ " the voice faded away into something muted, " _Jon._ "

Something terrible would happen, if Jon turned around. Something terrible would happen, if Jon got lost here. It could have happened to Sasha. It happened to him instead. He had to put a stop to it, and so he couldn't turn around. Martin wasn't there, somewhere behind him. Or he was, but it wasn't right. It would only hurt Martin, even though the fog said otherwise.

Jon had to find another way. He had to... he had to _see_. Had to keep looking. Martin was... ahead, even though there was no such thing here. He would be ahead, if Jon kept going.

" _Something about that place, it just... it makes me feel weird? But... the sort of weird you just have to get out somehow. Maybe I-- Maybe I should do some open mics, or something. Just for me, really, I think. Oh! You-- you want to hear some?_ "

Jon did. He very much did. He didn't get to. The tape stuttered, resumed.

" _I don't like this place._ " That... that was Martin. That was what Jon clung to. Martin wouldn't like this place, even if they were safe. Even if Jon gave it to him, shaped the whole world in its image, so that it could be just the two of them. Alone, together, and no one would ever hurt them again. But that wasn't right. Wasn't true. " _It's so cold, and, and the logs in the fireplace are damp from the mist. I don't know how I'd even light them._ " He'd kept them lit. That was important. Why was it important? " _He loved me, and I couldn't even remember his face._ "

Jon kept walking. His leg hurt, like something sharp and twisting had been shoved into it. The fog was formless and silver and endless. He could end up walking here forever. He was tired. Cold. He didn't know the way.

Stutter, resume. Out and in. " _Hey, hang on. Where did you come from? Tape recorder... what, you want me to give you a statement? I..._ "

 _Yes,_ Jon thought, and something shifted behind his eyes. Yearning, hungry. Wrong, so very wrong, but also... right? Martin already had. Two now, and one of them... it was important. Jon was tired and cold, but nothing like he'd been... before. Before what? He kept walking, and he had the strength to, even though he was cold and tired and his hand hurt and his leg ached. He had the strength to keep going because of Martin. Jon knew that, the clarity behind his eyes sharp as a knife and well-fed.

Martin had given him a statement, because he was terrified of what would happen to Jon. He was terrified of being alone.

" _Martin,_ " the tape recorder said. " _It feels like a small name. One that wants to be warm and happy. Not like here._ "

Not here. Not here. This wasn't right, and Jon kept walking, and the ripples spread, and the fog shuddered as he passed.

" _You know, I've wandered around all these rooms, and... they all just make me feel alone. They scare me. Even when I find someone else, I feel alone. Did I tell you?_ "

He'd told Jon much the same. Martin was scared of being alone, even when Jon was right there with him. Jon didn't know how to fix that. But this fog wouldn't, even though it said it would. They would be alone, together, it promised. Quiet. Safe. But Martin didn't want that.

" _I'm scared,"_ Martin said. " _I think this fog is doing something to me. I can't... I'm losing myself, and I... and I don't know if I mind? Maybe I deserve it._ " He did mind, Jon thought. He didn't deserve it. " _So much of what's behind the fog hurts. So much of it just makes me want to curl up with pain and embarrassment and... maybe the fog's here because I want it here._ "

 _No,_ Jon thought. Jon had wanted it. Martin had been afraid of it, but Jon had called it here. He knew that. He was beginning to _see_ how, even if it didn't make sense to him yet. Even if he couldn't see the whole. But the parts... he could see them. He could begin piecing them together. He kept walking.

" _Why did he leave me behind?_ " Martin asked, and Jon's leg spasmed. He very nearly fell. He squeezed the tape recorder instead, a jolt of fresh pain. " _Did he? Who are... who are you? Who am...? Jon._ " When the name came again, it was a little stronger, small but brimming with realization, with a fragile kind of hope. " _Jon. Yes. Jon. I remember him. I need to-- I need to keep him here. If he can find me, I... he knows enough. Surely he knows enough to find me, but I can't... if I forget him, if, if I forget me, maybe there's nothing left to know. No one to find._ "

The fog closed in. Jon could hardly even see the empty water beneath his feet. Mist dampened his face, his eyes. It made him want to close them, but if he did, he'd get lost. Keep walking. _Keep talking,_ he thought, as if Martin could hear. Jon needed it. He needed to hear it. Like the echoes rebounded off of invisible contours and came back with the shape of this place and lodged those dimensions between his ears, behind his eyes.

" _Talking helps,_ " Martin said, and Jon loved him so very, very much. Like another lancing jolt behind his missing ribs, but a good one, this time. " _I got you all here to listen. Just... just don't stop talking._ " A rattling inhale across the static. " _You... you are Martin Blackwood. Yes. You... you didn't choose to be here. Jon is coming. I am Martin Blackwood, and I am not lonely anymore. I am not lonely anymore! I want to have friends. I-- no, I have friends. I'm in love._ " A small laugh, wondering and bright. " _I am in love, and I will not forget that. I will not forget._ "

Jon stopped, as something caught his eye. The ripples radiated outward in all directions. The fog hovered close to his skin, but didn't close in.

He looked down and saw himself staring up from the water, a reflection of haggard exhaustion and far too many scars.

"Thank you," Jon whispered, a faint rasp like cracking ice, as Martin's voice emanated from the tape recorder and echoed against the silvery water and the fog. "I love you."

He lifted the tape recorder, muscles straining against the tired and the cold, and hit record.

"Statement of Jonathan Sims," Jon began, and his voice was steadier, unyielding, even through the croaking of his sore throat, "the Archivist, regarding... the Lonely. Recorded by subject... well, fuck if I remember what day it is. Statement begins."

He started walking again, the ripples stronger, more aggressive. The fog clung to him and sank in, whispering safety and emptiness and being alone, being removed from it all with no one and nothing to hurt. But Jon looked down at his arms and his coat and his legs and his scars, all soaked in the damp of this place, and he took it in with a detached sort of interest, as he walked.

"I think I'm... the only words that come to mind are that I am _being courted_ ," Jon said with a grimace, "as disturbing as that sounds. But I know that I invited it here. That my fear attracted it. That Martin's fear did. Over the past few days, I have been... increasingly unwilling to spend time by myself, and Martin has been increasingly unwilling to leave my side. That, I suppose, is reasonable, given the events of the day before yesterday. But unfortunately, even reasonable fears leave one vulnerable."

He walked, and the water rippled. He knew that somewhere in this place, Martin heard him. Martin was holding on to himself. All Jon had to do was find the way out and shine a light through the fog. He just had to know where to look, and with every word he spoke, his vision grew clearer and clearer, no matter how much mist clung to his eyelids.

"I have been afraid of being alone, and so has Martin," Jon said. "It's been so _cold_ , and I haven't even noticed. It's remarkable, what details can escape one's attention. How routine fear and discomfort become. And... there is a part of me that simply wanted it to come. I find myself reluctant to venture out into the world, to leave our place of relative safety, where it is quiet and where it is just the two of us. More than that, I asked for a way to hide from sight, and so that was... provided."

He remembered now. He'd wanted to not be seen. He'd wanted to hide. He'd wanted to vanish with Martin at his side.

"Even now, it keeps tempting me," Jon said, and he couldn't deny how effective it was, if one didn't look too closely. "I am afraid of what will happen and who will want to use me, should they discover what I am. I am... tired. I'm tired of trying and hunger, and I'm tired of being afraid. But this place, this force, shows me that there is shelter in an empty world. It shows me that nothing can hurt me there. More than that, nothing can hurt the man I love. He has been here before. He was part of this, and he can be again, and we can be alone, together, in the world that I can make, and nothing will hurt us."

Jon kept walking across the silvery water and huffed.

"That is a lie, of course, not to mention an oxymoron. I don't believe that it intends to lie. I don't believe it has intention at all. I... don't understand yet, what it is and how it operates. But I can see it now."

There were shapes in the fog. People, too far away and ephemeral for Jon to catch up with. He wanted to. He wanted to save them. He couldn't, not without risking himself, risking Martin, risking whatever unfortunate individual that Jonah Magnus would turn his sights on next.

"I've been afraid, and I've been cold, and I didn't notice," Jon said, "but looking back, I see it now. I _see_ it. I _know_ things that I didn't before. In being made aware of what I am, what I carry with me, I seemed to have gained the ability to look more directly, and not just through the distorted lens of those who have been touched by fear. Or perhaps it is only my lens now, looking into what has touched me. I look, and I see, and it doesn't quite hurt, though I'm not entirely certain of what I'm looking at."

More shapes, more people, but bigger things too. The outlines of places, landmarks. The fog was cloying and sweet and cold, wrapping him up in its tender embrace, pleading and cajoling. Taking his shape, his form, molding itself to him and his wants. It could, if he let it. It could shape much more than him, and it would be his to mold. Safe and alone. No more worry and pain. No more trying and failing.

"But I _see_ it," Jon said, brushing the fog aside, "because it opens itself to me. It wants something, inasmuch as it is capable of wanting anything. It wants to _become_ , as they all do. I see that which has been called Lonely and Forsaken and One Alone. I see where its edges bleed into things that are not Lonely and Forsaken and Alone, and I see where this force and this place waxes and wanes, and I _see_. It is almost enough to draw a map."

Something else loomed, distant and shadowy. Coming closer, step by difficult step, and something hummed with it, faint and mechanical. The water rippled. The fog clung. Jon walked and spoke and was so very cold.

"It... looks back at me," Jon said, with some surprise, as his ears rang and the space behind his eyes thrummed. "It sees me too. I don't... I don't know. I don't think it's always been able to do that. I don't think it's the same way that I see. That we do. But... something has changed. I couldn't tell you what it was or when it happened. But it hurts, doesn't it?" His voice was quiet. Vicious, as the words rippled against the water and the fog. "It hurts to see. To know. To know that you _are_ seen."

His ears rang even more, muffled and distorted, like something was trying to scream at him, far, far away. Ripples came, and not from his feet. He would have been too cold to move, had something else not flowed through him: a sense of all-consuming satisfaction, easing pressure behind his eyes, flooding strength into his limbs. His tongue sparked when he spoke.

"I see you," Jon said, voice tattered but brimming with compulsion, tearing aside a veil. "I _see_ you. If I look long enough, I will _know_ you, and then..." He laughed. "I don't know. But perhaps I'd like to find out."

The fog was pulling away from him, closing itself off, less easy to see. The thing ahead loomed, almost solid, almost familiar. The mechanical droning grew louder. The water rippled in all directions, from all directions, and Jon's reflection beneath him was sharp and breaking apart like a jagged ice floe.

"It seems you've got a parasite," Jon said, just as serrated as his reflection. It hurt to talk, now, but he wouldn't stop, and he made sure that fact was implanted in the words. "What are you going to do about it?"

The fog did the only thing it could. It spit him back out.

Jon's legs collapsed beneath him, and he slammed into the ground: the solid, earthy, grassy ground, damp with morning and cold but not frigid. Daisy's car was nearby, light blue in the growing daylight. The cabin loomed just ahead, and the generator hummed quietly, as Jon pushed himself stiffly to his feet.

His hand hurt, and so did his throat. His skin itched. He was still cold, too much for October, but it wasn't cloying and toying and consuming. His head was clear. He felt... full. Like he'd had two good meals today.

He knew that Martin was within the cabin, grounded by the recorder he'd poured himself into. There was a recorder in Jon's hand too. He vaguely remembered snatching it up, as he'd run towards Martin.

Jon took a breath and turned, casting his eyes to the highlands around him. It was mid-morning, and sunlight was burning through the fog that been encroaching there for two days. Not all of it, though. He could still see bits of fog clinging to grass and ground and cabin, like stubborn, crystalline spiderwebs. But the sky was wide and blue, dizzyingly open, and the sun was a blazing eye of fire bearing down on everything it touched. The highlands were just as open as the sky, with nothing to shield the cabin from sight. Anyone could drive by and see them.

They were exposed, without covetous fog to hide within. Exposed, with the fizz and whisper at the end of Jon's tongue that was so eager to leap forth, with the clawing thing lodged behind his eyes, that ached to see and look and know, no matter the cost. With the aching and burning of his hand, his throat, his lungs, his arms and legs. With all that seethed and foamed beneath his skull, that had been carved and planted there, with the powder keg nestled between rows of thoughts that only needed a spark.

"Statement ends," Jon said, hitting the record button again and popping the rime-encrusted tape out of the recorder. He gingerly wrapped his bandaged fingers around the tape as he tucked the recorder into his coat, and he noted, distantly, that he wasn't afraid. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been anything but.

"Fine then," Jon said, staring unblinkingly back at the highlands, at the world and what lay impossibly beyond and within it. "All eyes on me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Lonely-typical unreality and depersonalization, especially as pertaining to MAG 170. Lots of dialogue from that one here.
> 
> There's "feed your god," and there's "it feeds on you," but I'm waiting for Jon in canon to figure out the simple, obvious, and super sexy third option: feed on the gods.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

Jon packed the car himself, as morning wore on.

Martin wasn't quite catatonic, afterwards, but he clung to Jon for a long time, shivering and dazed and barely able to string more than a few words together. His color was all wrong, washed out and sickly, and it wasn't unexpected. It would have been frightening, had a strange energy not coursed through Jon, had he not been utterly focused on getting them out of there. Martin didn't need him to be afraid right now. They needed to leave, and Jon was brimming with a whirlwind of drive that would see them out soon enough. Fear felt far away.

The fire was dead, like the Lonely's passing had extinguished it. Wisps of fog still clung everywhere Jon looked, and sometimes they strained towards him when he passed, but he ignored them.

Jon coaxed Martin to the sofa and made sure that he was comfortable and covered, then set to work as quickly as he could, between one hand that couldn't maintain a grip and aches that spasmed throughout his body on whims of their own. Clothes, toiletries, food, other essentials, anything they could possibly need from the cabin, it all went into the car.

He knew that Martin had been meaning to see about weapons, even if it was merely kitchen knives or crowbars from a DIY shop. He _knew_ where Daisy's stash was, preternatural instinct guiding him to an infinitesimally loose floorboard in the bedroom. He managed to pry it up with a poker from the fireplace and found mostly guns and ammunition of varying sorts, which would be functionally useless to them. Basira might appreciate those, though, and there were a few weapons of the bladed variety too.

Jon gathered them all up and tucked them underneath the car's false trunk bottom, along with the fire pokers and a few of the bigger knives from the kitchen. The Beholding wanted to be stubborn, apparently, when it came to figuring out if the guns were safe to stick in the car, but Jon clawed for an answer and got one, even though it drove a spike of pain through his right eye: they weren't loaded and wouldn't go off.

When the cabin had been stripped down, as bare as it had been when they'd arrived, and the trunk of the car was fit to burst, Jon returned to the sitting room.

Martin was huddled under a blanket and curled into the sofa, tape recorder clutched between his hands. He stirred when Jon put a hand on his shoulder, but he didn't look any better. He wouldn't, until they got away from the rest of this fog. There wasn't much left that a regular eye could see, but it might as well have soaked the place in its misery. The cabin wasn't safe, Jon thought, bitter and resigned. Perhaps it never had been.

"Jon," Martin murmured, barely audible, and he turned slowly, struggling to throw off the blanket. "Sor-- sorry."

Jon brushed a hand against Martin's cheek, still far too cold beneath his fingers. "None of that," he said, his chest catching with something that may have been an effect of the lingering chill and may have just been something that happened often around Martin. It hurt, another ache for the collection, because Martin wouldn't look so washed out if Jon hadn't done this to him. "Come on. It's time to go. You'll feel better soon, I promise."

Martin got to his feet with Jon's help, and Jon didn't let him go. He swept the blanket up too, then helped Martin to the car and into the backseat. Martin curled up in much the same way there, tape recorder still in hand. The other one was in Jon's coat.

Jon frowned, then returned to the cabin as quickly as he could. He snatched up one of the pillows too, as he made one last sweep.

And when the pillow had been gifted to Martin, when there was nothing else that Jon could pull from the cabin, they left.

It shouldn't have hurt so much, really. They'd only spent the better part of a month there. And yet, it felt as if something had _changed_ , so thoroughly, so terribly, so wonderfully. Nothing had, and everything had. The world had come to the brink and pulled back. Now it stood on a precipice -- or rather, Jon did. He was a _canvas_ for things monstrous and apocalyptic, and there was no walking that back.

But he and Martin had been happy. It was such a strange notion, for such a short time. Unreal, in a way, because it had been a long time since Jon had envisioned anything approximating _happy_ in his future. But the past month was no doubt the one solitary thing keeping Jon upright, under the crushing knowledge that no part of his body and mind was his own anymore.

Jon used the rearview mirror to keep an eye on Martin, checking every minute as he drove down empty dirt roads and between wide fields. Every so often, his eyes would slide to the duffel bag on the floor beneath the passenger seat, his thoughts to the _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_ tucked within, to the assorted statements and tapes piled on top of it. To the frosty tape he'd shoved in there too, as cold as it had been an hour or two ago.

Jon's undamaged fingers were tight around the steering wheel, and he tried to keep his bandaged hand still, because he was tired of the relentless hurt. But that energy, electric and wired, still coursed through him, and driving was not the best outlet for it. It felt like what coffee was theoretically supposed to achieve, though Jon had never found the stuff to live up to its reputation. A buzzing, jumpy kind of fervor pulsed beneath his skin, louder and more present than fear.

It seemed to be fading, the further they got from the cabin. And it faded enough, perhaps, for him to realize two things in short, jolting succession.

One: he had no idea where he actually intended to go. Two: Martin's eyes had been closed for roughly a minute and a half.

Jon yanked the car over onto what could only charitably be called the road shoulder, so jarringly and quickly that the cows beyond the nearby fence bolted. He was out through the driver's door and in through the back door in a second, but a thrum behind his eyes and a quick check with his hands told him that Martin was only asleep. So deeply that he didn't stir at Jon's touch, but asleep. Less washed out, now, and warmer.

Martin needed the sleep, Jon told himself. It would help.

He withdrew from the backseat and circled around to the side of the car that faced the road. Slowly, stiffly, with none of the focused energy that had overtaken him, Jon sank down with his back to the car and had a panic attack. Or something akin to one, anyway.

The grass was autumn green, and the road was only distinguishable by its indents. Its sides were lined with wired fence, behind which rolling fields full of cows lay. The wind was brisk and dry, nothing like the wet cold of before, and the sky was open, its clouds long and thin and white. It was normal, nice, a comfort to behold. 

Somehow, this made the phantom squeezing in Jon's chest worse. It ripped through him like an atomic blast, wave after wave of shivering heat, heart thundering in his ears, every thought he had abruptly redesigned to flay him raw, to cut down past his scars and expose the things buried underneath. No breath in his lungs, no shelter from the cold, no escape from the fire, cut open, trapped, blinded, infested, falling--

Jon's thoughts raced at terminal velocity through everything that had ever happened to him, until they didn't. Until he realized, painstaking and lethargic, that he could breathe. That he'd been able to breathe normally all along.

No unnatural information implanted itself in his head, to let him know if it had been a few minutes, a few hours, a few months. But a heady, empty kind of relief settled gingerly in its wake, as the panic trickled away, as tension relaxed its death grip on his sore muscles. Like feeling a strange absence of fear followed by too much all at once had wiped something clean.

He had his knees drawn loosely up and his head balanced against a hand, listless. He looked down at individual blades of grass, at the dirt, and breathed to remind himself that he could. The wind whistled, and the cows lowed. Martin was asleep just behind him in the car, and Jon didn't have to think to know that he breathed just as steady and deep.

"Careful with all that fear, Archivist," a voice said ahead of him, low and melodic and ringing with a cutting buzz, core deep and resonant. The air scraped and creaked, the edges of the sound shivering against Jon's temple. "You don't know what it might attract."

Jon didn't flinch. He frowned down at the ground and considered simply ignoring it, then heaved a sigh and rolled his head up, making no move to get to his feet.

Across the narrow road stood a yellow door, situated neatly between two fence posts, where wire would have been instead. Helen leaned against it with long arms ostensibly folded, her hair floating lazily about her head. "But congratulations on handling your little miasma problem," she added, offering what may have been a wink. "I knew you had it in you."

Jon let his head fall back against the car, trying to summon anything other than numb exhaustion and mild irritation. He was largely ineffective at that, and he settled for directing a half-hearted glare across the road. The last thing he felt like doing was talking to Helen, so naturally, she was here. "How did you know?"

"I told you," Helen said, with the slightest edge of exasperation, "I had a devil of a time finding you over in the village. That dreadful fog positively _drenched_ this area." Her lips curled back in amusement, too much, too wide. "And it didn't just decide on a little countryside holiday all by itself, now, did it?"

No. It didn't. Jon thought about that and studied Helen and tried to summon up fear, too. He found none. "Are you here to--?" he asked, and even though he knew what the answer would be, the words didn't come easily. His voice rasped, and his throat ached. He kept having to clear it. "To try your hand? To make me open a door to the world you want?"

Helen straightened. She was tall, taller than the real Helen had been in life, and when she moved, she didn't quite walk and didn't quite glide. It was impossible to interpret, and so Jon didn't try. He merely sat where he was, unmoving and unmoved, as she left her door behind and crossed the road. She wasn't here for that, Jon knew. It was annoying, how certain he was. That for some inexplicable reason, she had little interest in harming him. That he could do and say nearly anything short of using his abilities directly, and she would only shrug or laugh or say maddening things.

"Goodness, no," Helen said, her grin widening when he didn't react to her advance. "Where's the fun in _making_ you do anything? You Eye types might prefer that, but those who wander my halls must open the door of their own accord."

"Helen didn't want to open your door," Jon said, cold.

Helen folded herself down. She might have almost been sitting on the ground in the middle of the road, a mirror of Jon, except her limbs weren't the right length and proportion for that. The contortion of it made his head hurt even more. "And if she wasn't exceptionally good at it," Helen said, unnaturally long fingers splayed out on either side of her, as if she was only relaxing, "she wouldn't be talking to you right now. Perhaps it was unfair, the manner in which the opportunity unfolded before her, but she chose me. She chose, hmm... apotheosis, shall we call it?"

Jon let his knees sink down and drew his legs in, straightening his head. It wasn't defensive, except that it was. "You're not her."

"Are you _still_ on that?" Helen asked, her eyes rolling back into her skull. "As if it's that simple! Does it make it easier for you, to think that at some point you will no longer be Jon and no longer responsible for what you do?"

Jon let his eyes settle past her. The wide grassy knoll beyond the fence was empty. The few cows that had been grazing in the fields opposite had fled, spooked by the presence of something that shouldn't be there. Proof, maybe, that there were only monsters here. "I almost did it," Jon admitted, a hoarse croak into the silence that ticked past. He didn't know why he spoke. He didn't want Helen around. Didn't want to talk to her, after everything. "I almost let the Lonely have me. The world it offered was... more appealing than I would have thought."

"Well, thank goodness you came to your senses," Helen said. "You can do better." It was impossible to tell if she was joking or earnest, in that moment, and she leaned forward and brought her impossible hands up, to cup her chin in the likeness of listening intently. "What stopped you?"

"Martin," Jon said, without hesitation. Why share that with her? He didn't know, except that he was tired, and Martin was asleep, and Jon was trying very hard to pretend that it wasn't a kind of sleep that made him nervous. "He wouldn't-- it wouldn't have made him happy." He dug the heels of his hands into the sockets of his eyes until he saw stars, and he sighed. "God, something is _truly_ wrong with me, if that was the best reason I could come up with for not ending the world."

"On the contrary, you might _almost_ be deserving of his quite frankly baffling devotion," Helen said. Her head tilted at the edges of his vision, too much, far too much, and it made his stomach turn. "What _reasons_ are acceptable to you, then? Only the ones that mire you in endless guilt and martyrdom? You revel in that, don't you?"

Jon dropped his hands and glared. "What do you _want_?"

"So many things, dear Archivist," Helen said. "You may rest assured that none of them currently involve coaxing you to join the fractals. Although," she swept a hand back around, and her long sharp fingers wobbled and waved, "my door _is_ always open to you, should you find yourself in the mood for a more... interesting world." The hand returned to its nebulous place at her side. "And I should warn you that I probably won't be able to help myself, should you take Martin's advice about shortcuts." Helen's eyebrows bobbed up and down at him, sharp and angled and not quite aligned, like the rest of her. "You are... quite appetizing, at the moment."

"Why would you tell me that?" Jon asked insistently. Compulsion almost glittered on his tongue, before he swallowed its static. The edges of it hurt, going back down his bruised throat. "Why pick and choose your warnings?"

"Who says that I pick and choose?" Helen's response was smug and airy, and argument was a breath away, before Jon realized that it was no doubt what she wanted. "I _told_ you bad things were coming. They still are, you know." Helen gave him a very pointed look, except for the way her eyes never seemed entirely aligned. "That little fog spell won't be the end of it."

Fear stirred again, a slow churn in Jon's gut. He wanted to ask, to see what he could wrangle out of one monster who wasn't particularly interested in killing them or using him, because Martin was right about that. About being outnumbered. "Would I be able to stop you?" Jon asked instead, with a tug of curiosity and a deliberate effort to keep the words free of clinging static. "If we met in... your territory."

"Hmm," Helen said, perched there in the middle of the road like the picture of lazy thoughtfulness. "I really don't know." It sounded genuine, and the grin that stretched too far across her face made way for mounting delight. She wagged her uneven eyebrows at him again. "Would you like to find out?"

"No, thank you," Jon said, short.

"Well, no matter," Helen said lightly, with a disorienting wave of her hand. "We don't need my hallways to hang out."

"No," Jon said, without much fire. 

Helen splayed a few long fingers against her chest, as if he'd wounded her. They bent in absurd ways. " _Martin_ wants to hang out with me," she said, the words dripping with equal parts offense and amusement.

"And _you_ were fine with letting him rot," Jon retorted, a little more fire this time. 

"Oh, I knew he'd be _fine_ ," Helen said. "Probably. You are far too smitten with him to allow otherwise." The buzz of her presence scraped through Jon's ears, a background noise that didn't quite fade out, that he couldn't quite get used to. "You'd give him the world, if you could. Isn't that right?"

Jon's mouth drew thin. His eyes needed a break from her ever-shifting form, and so he let his gaze slide away, to the distant, sunlit fields once more. No fog, as far as he could see. They'd left the last tendrils behind, and he wondered if they would remain there. A cabin in the middle of nowhere, always touched by the Lonely. "He thinks I can... win," Jon said at length. "Martin. If I... go up against Magnus. In my own _territory_."

Helen straightened, arms retracting from where they'd been impossibly balanced and contorted on either side of her. "Really?" Helen asked with great interest, leaning forward, hair wafting like a fractal halo. Practically close enough to touch, if Jon reached out. Would it hurt? She'd only ever touched him once: when he'd tried to compel her. She hadn't broken skin, then. Almost, but not quite. "How _insightful_ of him."

Jon met her gaze squarely, even though it made his eyes ache and want to cross. Helen didn't say anything, only grinned expectantly at him, until Jon let loose a short, frustrated sigh. "Well?" he demanded. "What do you think?"

"Oh, _Jonathan_ ," Helen said, with an air of great surprise. "You _want_ my opinion?" She appeared to consider it, artfully slow in her deliberation, and Jon knew that she was just trying to test his patience. It was working, but he bit down on his tongue, as if that would do anything to keep her out from under his skin anyway. "If that wretched little Beholding man was less afraid," Helen said finally, "he would have told you more."

"And what does that say about you, then?" Jon asked, quiet, the stirring of compulsion only an extinguished whisper.

He could see all of Helen's teeth, in a smile more like the baring of fangs. She rose, slowly, but he didn't lean away. His eyes tracked her, as her body folded upward, back to its towering height, made all the taller by the fact that he had not moved from his seat upon the ground. "So many questions today," Helen said, grinning down at him. "Would you even believe my answer?"

Jon craned his neck to look up at her and huffed, a tiny, scathing thing. Good question. "I suppose I wouldn't," he said. "But he's not the only thing I have to worry about, is he?"

"Not at _all_ ," Helen said, and as she flickered, her jangling laugh joined the endless hum of the Distortion like a stone tossed into still water. Jon didn't see her move across the road, but she did, her back to her door now, her long fingers creeping around its edges. "Good luck, Archivist," Helen said, and he wasn't sure if it was warm or mocking, or both. Her head tilted, in the facsimile of half a bow. "See you around."

The door opened. Closed. Creaked. Jon didn't quite see Helen enter and didn't quite notice when the droning whir of her presence faded, but he blinked, and the yellow door was gone. Wire linked the fence posts once again, as Jon stared out at the highlands, at the horizon.

The full weight of the conversation actually hit him, then, and suspicion unfolded into terrible certainty.

"Fuck," Jon said, to the faint outline of cows in the distance.

* * *

It wasn't so cold. That was the first thing that Martin was really aware of: a sense of relief, that he could actually feel the tips of his fingers, that something warm was on top of him. The sense of whirring static followed, and a voice, somewhere beyond him. It wasn't a familiar voice, and yet it was, and he didn't register who it belonged to until another voice, _Tim_ , joined in, said a name, _Sasha_ \--

Martin threw himself up, and it was dim, too dim, he couldn't see, it didn't look right. Something clicked, and the whirring stopped, the voices stopped, and the ground beneath Martin sank a little. Not the ground-- the bed. He was... in a bedroom? But it wasn't their bedroom at the cabin, even though he heard Jon's voice, felt Jon's hands on him.

"Martin," Jon said. "Look at me."

The only light in the room came from a small table lamp, but Martin could see Jon clearly, this close. Jon caught Martin's face between his hands, with a furrow between his eyes that he got when he was studying something and thinking hard. Whatever he saw seemed to relax him, by a fraction, and he let go of Martin's face, only for his hands to sink down and hover at either side of Martin.

"We're in a hotel," Jon said, and Martin latched on to his lovely, raspy voice to keep himself afloat, as pieces of memory began slotting themselves back into place. "In Stirling. We had to leave-- ah. Do you remember?"

Martin did. Spotty and uncertain, but growing, as Jon watched him carefully. Each wave of recollection made him feel just a little colder, and he pulled the covers closer unthinkingly, breath shuddering as it left him.

"The Lonely," Martin said, and he struggled to push words out, his mouth thick and heavy. "I remember... being there. I heard you. I thought you left me, but then I remembered, and then... you were talking? You-- I don't--"

"It's alright," Jon said, like he was trying to reassure himself too. His hands weren't quite touching Martin, as if he wasn't sure what was welcome. Martin wasn't sure either. "It's gone. Mostly."

Martin remembered the cabin, too. Jon moving, grabbing things. They'd left. They were in a hotel now. He didn't know why that hit him like a punch to the gut. "What _happened_?" he demanded, to cover it up.

Jon noticed anyway, Martin thought, his eyes too sad. But Jon's gaze dropped away, as he settled back, legs dangling off the side of the bed. The small distance it put between them felt like a gulf. "It was my fault," Jon said, which didn't sound right, but Martin's mind was too fuzzy to follow. "Not yours. You didn't want it there. I--" He stopped and had to try again, clearing his hoarse throat. "It seems these marks also act as... _beacons_. As near as I can understand it, at any rate. I-- I called on the Lonely. I didn't realize what I was doing, but... I wanted to stay out of sight, and it... responded. Gave me the means to." Jon looked too pallid, beneath his reddened scars. "That's what we've been feeling, these past few days. The cold, the... _fear_. Some of it, at least, was merely its approach."

Bits of Jon's echoing words in the Lonely were coming back, slow and disjointed. They'd resounded throughout the strange house that Martin had found himself in, except it hadn't been so strange after all. Martin's chest hurt as he listened now, numbness creeping through him that didn't come from the cold.

"What?" he asked, stuck on a detail that he couldn't get past. "You called on it? You have, what, _Lonely powers_?"

Jon sat very stiff, except for how his left hand worried at the covers and then scratched at his arm. "I believe it's more like... a connection," he said, halting. "One that is inadvisable to open."

... Okay. Well, it made sense, the more Martin thought about it, the more he tried to get it all to line up in his head. "So..." he said, "you opened this... this connection, and the Lonely came, and... how did we get away from it?"

Jon got, if possible, even more stiff. "I, ah," he said, "I made a statement. I'm... not entirely sure if I understand, yet. What I'm certain of is that I started to _know_ it -- the Lonely, I mean -- while we were there. I started to _see_ it, and it didn't care for that. So... I simply made it too much of a hassle to keep us there."

Martin blinked heavy eyes. He remembered bits of that, too. He'd felt Jon's words shudder through the tape recorder, through him, strange and scraping. While Martin had just sat there, clinging desperately to the recorder, trying to remember his own name. "Thanks," he said, a little bit strangled. Twice in one month, he'd nearly gotten lost in the Lonely forever, something for Jon to fish out. That must be some kind of record. "For getting me out."

"It was only because of you," Jon said, his gaze so raw that Martin felt rather like a butterfly pinned to a corkboard for examination. "I was... lost, until I heard you. It--" His face spasmed with something. Regret, maybe. Shame. "It seems there's more than one way to kick off an apocalypse, if you happen to be me. I nearly did." A flash of a bitter smile. "Again."

Martin didn't move. Couldn't. His brain buzzed with white noise.

"So I have you to thank once more," Jon added, soft and weighty both, "for stopping me."

"Oh god," Martin whispered, his stomach turning over on itself as the implications finally landed, as his memories finally aligned, sluggish and hazy at the edges. The marks, the scars, as beacon and connection, and the Lonely had come, and it had wanted an apocalypse of its own, and _oh god_ \-- "Shit," Martin breathed. "Jon. You-- it came for you." What did that _mean?_ Would it happen again? Would _others_ come? "Can they all--" Martin started. Squeaked, really, before he cleared his throat and tried again. "Can they all, um, use you like that?"

He didn't like the way the question formed, as it left his mouth, the way it made Jon shrink into himself. "I don't know," Jon said, the barest tremor in his voice. "But... we should assume that they can and plan accordingly."

He said it so matter-of-factly, for something that enveloped Martin with such complete and total fear before he remembered to breathe, a trembling stop-start of his lungs. "What do we do?" he asked, small, shaky, because the Lonely made it so hard to _think_ , even when it was gone, and he didn't... he didn't know how to deal with this.

Jon shifted, a jerky movement, reaching for Martin's hand without quite grabbing it. Martin completed the circuit for him, reaching back, and Jon held on tightly with his good hand. With promise in the grip. The contact jolted. It kind of hurt, like dunking a frozen hand into scalding water. "For now," Jon said, "we do as you suggested. We put a stop to what we know is a threat." He didn't sound reluctant or unsteady. Just calm. Focused. "Helen seems to think more will come, though whether she meant avatars or... something else... remains to be seen."

"Helen?" Martin asked, momentarily distracted. "You saw her again?"

"Oh. Yes," Jon said, like he'd only just remembered that he'd forgotten to mention it. He frowned, but it wasn't furious. "She... stopped by. I'm still not clear on what she wants, but... she _is_ trying to warn me, for whatever reason. At the very least, we know to anticipate it."

Something had changed. The curiosity of it cut through some of the hazy white noise in Martin's brain, unraveled some of the anxiety twisting away within his chest. Jon spoke so purposefully, calmly, for someone who had only just learned that there were multiple ways to trigger the apocalypse, that they were all a part of him. He wasn't bristling, wasn't tipping too close to the steep drop of despair.

What was different, now? A lack of hunger?

"However," Jon continued, as if he'd never slipped off track, as if he didn't notice Martin's scrutiny, "while this is admittedly a guess, I don't believe the Lonely would have been drawn to me so easily, had I not... engaged with it first. As long as I mind my new _connections_ , I don't think we'll wake up to find various dread powers knocking on our door at all hours of the day."

Breathing was a little easier, and Martin's head wasn't so fogged. Jon didn't sound _certain_ , but neither did he sound afraid, and Martin observed him, tried to catch a glimpse of what had changed. "You've put some thought into it."

"I've had all day," Jon said, the words a small rasp, his smile flickering and strained.

The sudden image made Martin's heart sink: Jon huddled in this room while he waited for Martin to wake up, thinking too much and trying to _know_ enough to protect them and listening to tapes that would only hurt him. Martin wrapped his other hand around the scarred one in his grip, and the contact jolted, but didn't hurt. "How'd you even get us in here?" Martin asked, casting his eyes around the hotel room. The digital clock near the lamp told him it was late evening. "Did you tell them I was drunk?"

"You've been... in and out," Jon said, cautious. "You don't remember the walk here?"

Martin's hands tightened around the one between them, as if holding on for dear life, before he forced them to relax. He shook his head and tried to speak lightly, but his mouth was too dry for that. "Guess it did a number on me."

He felt a tug on his hands, and the bed creaked as Jon shifted. Martin let himself lean into it, as Jon pulled him in to brush a kiss against his forehead. "It's gone," Jon said, something iron in the words, and Martin needed to close the gap, suddenly. Needed the momentary closeness to be total and all-consuming, and he wasn't quite aware of clumsily untangling his fingers from Jon's, of the needy way he slumped forward.

Jon held him tight, fingers carding through Martin's hair, and Martin felt... solid. Real, with his head tucked under Jon's chin. A little less unmoored, as the contact stopped sparking and settled into something more familiar, less raw.

"I don't think we can go back to the cabin," Jon said, quiet, apologetic. "The Lonely... left its mark there. But I won't let it harm you," he added, quick, fervent. "I won't let any of them."

Martin head spun a little, at that. Jon just _said_ those kinds of grand things sometimes, with no regard for the kind of whiplash it would have on Martin's heart. He wanted to ask how Jon could possibly promise something like that, when they were in so very far over their heads, but it was better than despair, and Martin couldn't -- wouldn't -- think about otherwise, when he still shivered like so.

"Um," Martin said, "thanks?" What was he even supposed to _say_? "Back at you?"

Jon snorted into Martin's hair, soft and weary and amused, and Martin smiled.

Maybe it was a lie. Maybe they were only deluding themselves. But it didn't matter, because the Lonely had come and swallowed them up, and yet they were still here.

"Right," Martin said, pulling back and taking in the sight of Jon with his reddened scars and his graying hair and his tired, steely eyes. It was too much, too much to take in and fear all at once, and yet all Martin could feel, for a fragile, glowing moment, was lucky. "What next?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Mention of a panic attack.


	8. Chapter 8

The nightmare stopped on a Thursday night.

Georgie woke up. Melanie breathed soft and steady beside her, and a press of warm weight against her thigh told her that the Admiral was nestled between them. She blinked up at the dim ceiling, disoriented without knowing why, and listened to the endless whir of the fan. Strangeness sat heavy in her chest, like something within her had been moved a centimeter or so without her knowledge, like something static and numb lay draped across every inch of skin.

She tried to think back. Tried to remember what she'd dreamed that could have left her feeling like this.

She couldn't remember.

Georgie kept blinking up at the ceiling, as realization trickled slowly through her sleep-addled mind and sank even heavier into her limbs.

She _couldn't remember_.

Georgie shifted, tried to lift her head. It wasn't quite urgency, but it felt like she had to get up so that she could think better, because it had been the same dream, every night, for a while now, and why would it suddenly leave? She pushed herself up--

And received a tail in the face for her troubles.

"Oh," Georgie said, voice pitched low, as the Admiral dropped into a rather painful stretch across her lap. " _You._ Alright." She ran her fingers through his orange fur. "Let's get you fed, then."

She did that first, because otherwise the Admiral would start crying like a starving street cat, and Melanie was still asleep. She'd been understandably exhausted lately and needed all the sleep she could get, so Georgie fed the Admiral and padded about as quietly as she could between toilet and kitchen, until a steaming cup of tea was between her hands, and she sat down on the sofa and tried, again, to remember.

Still nothing. If she'd dreamed at all, it was gone, and that was nothing like the ever-recurring nightmare. It was like the dream _wanted_ her to remember. Wanted to live in her brain, somewhere in the carved-out hollow where fear should be. Which meant that it hadn't bothered her all that much, as she went about her day. The dissection room slipped through cracks in her mind left by death's shuddering impact, all but forgotten until the next night, when it returned.

Harder, though, to tune out _who_ was in the dream.

Georgie sat there and watched the Admiral attach himself to the radiator. "Really?" she asked, though her heart wasn't in it. "You just woke up."

This didn't seem to matter, when the Admiral found the optimal spot: one which bathed him in the maximum amount of morning light drifting through the window above. His eyes closed contentedly, and Georgie shook her head.

Without the cat to distract her and with Melanie still asleep, with only the distant sounds of life outside and no part-time job for a few hours yet, there was little to stop her from dwelling.

What did it mean, that the dream hadn't come? She knew it was because of all that Jon had gotten himself into, but what did it mean that it had _stopped?_

Georgie stared down at the dregs of tea at the bottom of the cup and felt no warmer for it, like the heating couldn't quite take the chill out of the flat. She shouldn't be thinking about this. She shouldn't be dwelling. That part of her life was over, done, and Melanie didn't need any part of it dragged back in. She should be getting up to fetch herself another cup, to get some housework done.

She remained on the sofa, mostly empty cup in hand, and she thought about how strange it had felt to wake up. How heavy, and more so than just a weight in her limbs. She remembered waking up years ago too, much like that, numb and distant. _The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one._ It was an empty mantra, meaningless, when it didn't stir any kind of feeling anymore. But it lingered always, like the dream had. Easy to ignore, except when it wasn't.

Was Jon _dead?_

Dead again, Georgie thought, with a catch in her lungs.

It jolted through her, something like worry, and she shouldn't have felt angry along with it. Or relieved. She shouldn't have been seeing him in her dreams every night, either. She _should_ have felt a lot of things about a lot of things, but she hadn't, not for a long time. Guilt followed the relief, sharp and stinging, and then a bitter frustration, because she shouldn't be sitting here worrying about him. She shouldn't be sitting here sickened with herself for a brief and reflex flash of horrible relief. He'd made his choices. She'd _told_ him, time and time again, that he would get himself hurt, and he hadn't _listened_.

How many times would she have to deal with his death, with the sick and unfair feeling that she hadn't done enough?

Georgie took a sharp breath, hands tight around the cup, and tried to calm herself.

She was jumping to conclusions. Jon could be fine, for all she knew. Maybe things were better. Maybe he'd found a way to _make_ it stop. He'd been worried about something, last time she'd seen him. Something had been happening. It could just be that he'd handled it.

She sat there for a while and tried to believe that.

Whatever had happened, Georgie couldn't keep wasting energy on it. If Jon was dead, she'd grieve. She didn't actually know if she'd get over it, not really, and she wanted to hate him for that. But she'd keep on living and let it slip to the wayside in her waking hours, like the dream, like the dead woman's words. She was an old hand at that. And if Jon wasn't dead, well... it was none of Georgie's business, anymore.

By the time Melanie stirred, Georgie put a smile in her voice and a pep in her step. She wanted to put the matter aside, too. Let it slip out of her mind like the dream always had, unable to stick between thoughts not given to fear.

It stayed instead.

* * *

The nightmare returned on a Friday night.

It began the same: almost lucid, almost real. The dissection room in the medical science building, just like Georgie remembered, except it was empty, devoid of gray bodies, devoid of the dead woman, devoid of Alex. Nothing to fear, when fear was a foreign thing. Only one other occupant remained, and Georgie wasn't afraid of him either.

Before, he'd been hard to see, hazy in the middle and at the edges, even when she was looking directly at him. As if he wasn't meant to be _seen_ like she was. As if he was meant to be _felt_ , a watching presence that did not look away, silhouetted by a great shadow that peered forth unblinking and unyielding and so very terrible.

Georgie had known these things with a dreamy conviction that was forgotten upon waking, and she knew now, with far more clarity, that something had _changed_.

Georgie wasn't afraid. She wasn't worried or sad or angry. She hardly felt anything at all, as if this dream space contorted itself around fear that she did not have and could hold little else within its confines. But she felt something _around_ her, a chill that traveled down her arms and up her spine, a sensation that she could not match to any feeling within her heart or head or limbs. It brushed against her arms and legs, rising slowly towards her chest, her neck.

An invisible current of something that was not water, flowing inexorably. A tide, filling the dissection room, creeping and implacable.

Something stirred within it, like a passing shadow beneath the surface. A vibration, deep and roiling in her gut, in muscles and sinew that shuddered and ached with its onset.

Georgie didn't need to feel fear to know danger. She didn't need to feel anything at all to feel what radiated around her, hungry, like boiling steam rising off of frigid water and cold, cold heat rising off of scorched pavement.

The room's other occupant had been difficult to see, once, because Georgie was meant to be seen, and the other was meant to watch, meant to refract the terrible gaze of another. But Georgie could see now, sharp and clear, like she was looking through eyes that were not hers and thinking alongside thoughts that did not belong to her.

She saw red lines on skin. Saw jagged red holes and mottled bruises, every centimeter of skin lacerated or discolored, and all of it shot through with red, like every drop of blood had escaped through every slash and puncture and crack.

The thing in the current saw it, like a shark.

The thing in the current _saw_ it.

The room's other occupant was meant to watch, meant to refract, meant to look, and the thing all around, the thing that could eat and cauterize every last trace of bygone fear... it looked back, at him and at the terrible shadow behind him.

It looked back.

* * *

When Georgie opened her eyes on a bleary Saturday morning, she wasn't afraid. She jolted awake nonetheless, her body reacting to something she could not understand, and sharp little claws dug into her leg, as Melanie startled awake too, her hand curling reflexively into Georgie's side where it was draped over her.

"Huh?" Melanie said hazily, as Georgie hissed between her teeth. To the Admiral's credit, the claws retracted immediately, and his warm weight disappeared, though it seemed he only moved as far as Melanie's side of the bed. "You okay?" Melanie asked, pushing herself up. One hand continued grasping at Georgie, and the other rose unthinkingly to brush against the nighttime bandages that covered her eyes, before she stiffened and lowered her hand.

"Yeah," Georgie said, trying for reassuring as she lifted herself by the elbows.

She must not have hit the mark, because Melanie frowned in her direction. "You sure?"

Georgie paused. Her heart didn't beat wildly, and her breathing was even. But every time she blinked, she saw it behind closed lids, felt it pulsing against her skin like the air swam with it. Like she was going to remember it this time, too clear, too present, like the nightmare had always _wanted_ to be remembered. Her heart didn't beat wildly, but her stomach churned with the memory of lacerations and blood and a hideous rising current.

"You know when you wake up, and you're not quite sure where you are?" Georgie asked. "That." She placed a hand over the one that clung to her, steady, comforting. "I'm okay. Just got confused, for a second."

Melanie's frown deepened. Her other hand traveled down, seeking out the Admiral, who had curled up against her other side. His baleful eyes glittered at Georgie in the gloom, but he'd forgive her as soon as she set his bowl out later. "Okay," Melanie said, hesitant and sleepy. Most of her was obscured by early morning shadow, but that didn't stop the protective swell in Georgie's chest as she looked at Melanie. At her worried face, not quite mollified but not quite willing to argue right now. At the bandages protecting the scarring in and around her eyes, slowly healing.

Georgie blinked and saw the bright red clarion call of a dozen cuts and holes slashed and drilled into Jon's skin.

That _would not happen_ to Melanie.

"Go back to sleep," Georgie said, soft and soothing, stroking gentle fingers across the hand that held her.

Melanie wasn't buying it, if her unbroken and ever-deepening frown was anything to judge by, but she was tired, these days, and it was far too early to be up. She nodded and sank down with a muttered, "Night," and Georgie curled up beside her once more, hoping that proximity to Melanie and the Admiral fixed within her line of sight would help ease her back into sleep.

It didn't.

* * *

It was probably stupid, to think that Melanie would let it rest, and part of Georgie was surprised that it didn't come up right away. But Melanie gave it until breakfast, likely because it would be a while before new routines became old habits, and she had to carefully think and feel her way through each morning's motions now, sometimes with Georgie's help. It took time, still, but Melanie was getting better at the patience thing.

Eating was an easier thing to adapt to, and Melanie didn't even bother digging into the hash browns first. She fixed Georgie with an approximate stare that was not quite centered, and Georgie froze with her hand above her fork.

"So, what was last night about, then?" Melanie asked, dangerously light.

Georgie tried not to sigh. She wrapped her fingers around the fork, but she couldn't bring herself to lift it. "Nothing," she said, flexing her fingers and then abandoning the fork. "Just had a weird night."

Melanie's shoulders grew tense. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table, as if steadying herself against it. "Stop," she said, the word tight and trembling.

Georgie's stomach sank, as the frown from last night returned to Melanie's face in full force. She'd already dug herself a hole before breakfast, a new Barker record, and so all she could ask, even though she figured she probably knew the answer already, was, "Stop what?"

"Stop treating me like I can't handle things," Melanie said, as expected, and then she forged on, as Georgie's mouth opened. All that escaped was a huff of aborted words. "I know, I know you're just trying to... lighten the load, or whatever you want to call it. And that's... nice. But it's starting to _not_ feel like that." Melanie offered a little nod, like she was satisfied with that. "And see? Communicating. Your turn."

Something brushed against Georgie's leg, soft and slinking. She might have jumped at the sudden sensation breaking through her troubled thoughts, had she been anyone else. As it was, she reached down to scratch behind the Admiral's ears with a sigh. "It's not that I don't think you can handle things," she said, cautiously, trying to convey how much she meant that. As if Melanie wasn't one of the strongest people she knew. As if Melanie wasn't someone who deserved a _break_. "It's just that I _really_ do not want to talk about this."

Melanie's frown lightened somewhat, but it didn't clear. One of her hands strayed, searching for her own fork, but all she did was poke at her plate, as the Admiral departed and Georgie sat there frozen, unable to touch her breakfast when she still felt so sick, when the silence was heavy and waiting to be broken.

"Those dreams," Melanie said, and Georgie almost jumped, then, "the ones from giving a statement? I didn't get one, yesterday."

The revelation slotted uncomfortably into Georgie's chest, like a stone lodging somewhere in her lungs. "You didn't tell me that you _got them_ at all," she said, only a little accusing, and what did that mean for them? Melanie was supposed to be free. It was supposed to have--

"Yeah, 'cause you get so tetchy about Institute stuff," Melanie said, cutting breezily through the cascade of Georgie's thoughts. "I didn't want you to freak out." She shrugged. "It was... kind of a relief, actually? Only started getting them after I poked my eyes out, and I figured that meant it worked." She fell silent for a moment, some of the frown returning, deep like a permanent etching. "Thought it was weird, that they just stopped like that. But they came back last night."

Okay, yeah. Maybe communication was a critical thing, and Georgie knew that, in most cases. Just not this one, apparently. Her plans to keep the Institute far away from Melanie were grinding to a halt, and she might have known that sooner, had Melanie felt like she could bring it up. "Was it... different?" Georgie asked, even though she didn't want to.

"Hmm?" Melanie asked. "No. About the same, really. I think so, anyway. They're a bit faint." Her brows practically knit together over the fresh bandages, and she set her unused fork down. "I was just going to ask if they were bothering you, but..."

Georgie leaned back in her chair, as if that could distance her from the conversation, her eyes restlessly roaming over the room, over anything but Melanie. Melanie couldn't see her, but agitation was a palpable thing, felt more than seen, and Georgie, in turn, could see that it was starting to upset Melanie.

"It changed, last night," Georgie admitted, because it would only get worse, if she tried to brush it off again. "For me, at least. I... don't even know how to describe it. It felt like... something _else_ was there? And Jon, he was... he was hurt?" She swallowed. Her stomach turned over on itself. She swallowed again. "He wasn't like that in yours?"

Clearly not, from the rapidly darkening expression on Melanie's face. It shadowed the bandages around her eyes, as she sat there, stock still, visible cogs turning somewhere in her mind to grind out nothing good. "Why would your dream be different?"

Georgie shook her head, then remembered and said it aloud: "I don't know."

Melanie was restless now, and the Admiral must have found his way to her too, because she jumped and then reached down, fingers searching for fur. Her head was angled away from Georgie, her hair shielding some of her face. It felt too much like distance. "We need to call him," Melanie said at last, urgent.

"No," Georgie said at once. "We are _not_ inviting that back into our lives."

Melanie let loose an explosive sigh as she straightened in her seat, and Georgie saw a flash of orange as the Admiral darted away. "It's not like we're inviting him over," Melanie said. "What harm is there in calling him up and saying, 'Hey, thought you should know that my creepy dream about you just changed, hope you're doing well,' and then hanging up?" Her face hardened, and so did her voice, when Georgie didn't respond. "He's my friend, Georgie."

"And if he's not doing well?" Georgie asked, quiet, and Melanie froze again. "Could you hang up on that and go about your day? Without feeling guilty about it?" The look on Melanie's face said otherwise, and Georgie took a breath, steeling herself. Bad enough that Jon had come asking for help once and Melanie had been restless about it for days afterward. "It's not about about being friends, it's about how it all just... sucks you in, the second you give it an opening. Look what happened to Jon. Look what you had to do to get away from it. At some point, you've got to take a step back and cut it off completely, before it gets you too."

Melanie got that pinched, stubborn look to her face. The effect wasn't at all dampened by the bandages. "Completely, huh?"

Georgie tried, very hard, not to be completely and utterly furious with Jon. It didn't feel right, when he kept bleeding and bleeding, somewhere behind her eyes. "Dreams aside."

The stubborn looked hardened, like immutable stone. "Fine," Melanie said, final and inflexible, and she pushed herself up to her feet, grasping at the table as she oriented herself. " _I'll_ call him."

Well, that was an argument lost. Georgie had been learning a lot, about the distinctions between when Melanie would back down and when she would plant herself and simply refuse to move, and Georgie could admit when planting herself in turn would not work. There was usually room to navigate between that, though, and so Georgie stood too. She made sure to advertise where she was, but Melanie knew where she'd left her phone and found her way easily. The flat was becoming a natural environment for her, and that fact lit something warm in Georgie's chest, melting away the mild irritation.

"Okay," Georgie said, waiting until Melanie had laid hands on her phone. "Let me call, then."

Melanie's face twitched with something cautious, as the screen reader chirped. She appeared to be wrestling with something internal. "You sure?"

Georgie nodded out of habit and added a, "Yeah." And she knew it was the right choice, because something tense bled out of Melanie's shoulders, and she handed the phone over without protest, not quite at the point of swallowing enough pride to simply ask Georgie to handle it.

Georgie made sure to plant a kiss on the top of Melanie's head before she flicked through the contact list. She would do everything in her power to keep the Institute and everything associated with it away from Melanie, but this was clearly important enough to Melanie for her to stubbornly insist on making a call that she'd really rather not, and Georgie kept blinking and seeing flashes of cold steel equipment and terrible wounds.

It would not get out of her head. Would not stop ringing hollow and distant, where fear ought to be.

So... she'd make a call. _One_ call. For Melanie, who looked far too worried underneath her bandages. For Jon, who kept bleeding and bleeding.

The call couldn't even make it through, like the other end was discontinued or out of reach. Georgie tried twice, just to be sure, and unhappy disquiet settled even more hollow, as if making a permanent home in her head in the remains of what had been cut out. The Admiral must have sensed something, because she felt him brush against her legs again, before making his way to Melanie's legs.

"It's not going through," Georgie said.

Melanie hesitated, then stooped down and scooped up the Admiral, who purred contentedly when he was settled in her arms. She clung to him like he was the most steadying thing in the world, staring sightlessly out at the bedroom, frowning in a way that Georgie didn't know how to smooth out.

"Basira's number is still in there," Melanie said, and Georgie sighed and braced herself and made another call.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

Basira met them a little less than halfway for her, northeast of Manchester, and she texted Jon to let him know they'd find her in the lounge attached to the hotel's restaurant. They hadn't talked long on the phone, yesterday or this morning, with some things cited as better left for a face-to-face conversation. Basira would have assumed that Jon was being cryptic, except that it was usually Martin who spoke to her about logistics, and the words "another encounter with the Lonely" made it clear that Martin was not okay and that Jon was distracted.

And so Basira didn't press for information, even though she itched to. She'd hear about it soon enough, anyway.

Which turned out to be after ten p.m. on a Sunday evening, but the lounge was open until one a.m. anyway. Basira had spent the later part of the evening in there, nursing a few glasses of water -- no way she would risk getting drunk, nowadays -- and a well of growing impatience. It itched under her skin, and she only kept steady at her corner booth through a forceful application of willpower, which mostly amounted to tapping restlessly at her phone.

The impatience lasted as long as it took for Jon and Martin to arrive, and Basira's pointed comment about driving very, very slowly died at a second glance.

She cataloged details out of habit: Jon had a scarf around his neck, as if to hide more of himself, but it couldn't hide the angry-looking scars on his face or the hand wrapped in bandages. He looked less like sleep-deprived death than usual, but that wasn't saying much, and his eyes were too red. Martin, on the other hand, looked a little closer to death, but it wasn't as bad as it had been after the attack on the Institute. He seemed alert, at least, though he hovered close to Jon.

"Made it alright?" Basira asked lightly, as they approached.

"I'm not used to the motorways," Jon admitted, his raspy voice a tad sheepish, and it sounded even worse than it had over the phone. He stepped aside to let Martin into the booth ahead of him.

At least he still remembered how to drive, even if it had left Basira sitting here a bit longer than anticipated. Back before they'd left, Jon had assumed they'd be taking the rail to Scotland. _Honestly._ Basira would've thought that he'd never once dealt with a crisis before. It was a good thing Daisy kept a backup car -- the kind of thing that was borderline essential, in the event of fleeing or sheltering in place. Mobility, quick options.

Martin slid into the booth across from her and said, "Hey, Basira," in a weary sort of way, but the smile that accompanied it seemed genuine, if faint. His eyes roamed around the lounge as Jon slid in next to him. "Interesting place?"

More like unremarkable and tucked away, but that was the point. Basira shrugged. "Easy to bolt from, if we need, since we're not boxed in by the city. It's got a good bit of park nearby, and Peak District? Managed to find out that it used to be a stomping ground for one Trevor Herbert. Public disturbances, that sort of thing." She huffed. "Wouldn't be surprised if there were a few bodies buried off the trails. Food's good here, though," she added. "Want anything?"

Jon shook his head. "We ate on the way." His eyes roamed too, and Basira cataloged like it was reflex: Jon was jumpy, but not to the point of outright paranoia. Didn't mean that Basira would be letting her guard down any time soon, as long as they were in a public space like this, as long as an unknown number of threats still lurked out of sight. Jon, she noted, also leaned in close to Martin. _Very_ close.

Well... at least one good thing had come out of this colossal fucking mess they'd all made. "Sorted things out, then?" Basira asked, and when they both stared at her, uncomprehending, she gave them an unimpressed look. "You two."

They wouldn't be winning any prizes for stoicism, that was for sure. Martin's face took on an interesting but not unpleasant shade. "Oh," Jon said, somewhere between flustered and happy. It was a strange look on him. Different, but not bad. "I assumed you knew."

"I guessed," Basira said. Martin certainly had a way of going on and _on_ , over the phone, if not stopped. She'd thought it was kind of funny, to see how long he would go before bringing it up. Wasn't like she had much else to laugh about, at any rate. "But Martin didn't actually mention it."

Jon had a sly air as he glanced over at Martin, an eyebrow arched in judgment.

Martin turned an even more interesting shade as he spluttered, which looked better on him than the unhealthy tinge to his skin. "It's not the sort of thing that comes up!" he said, rapping indignantly at Jon's arm with his knuckles. "Oh, by the way, I'm kissing the Archivist senseless on the regular now, _so_ nice to talk to you."

Something twinged, as Basira watched Jon chuckle and Martin duck his head with fond embarrassment. Something sharp and sudden in her chest. Something ugly, and she didn't want to indulge it and admit that it was jealousy, but maybe it was.

She'd had that, once. Not so long ago. A good partner, who made everything make sense, even when nothing did. Nothing had, after Daisy had been all but dead, even though Basira had tried everything to forge that clarity for herself anyway. And then Daisy had come back, and clarity hadn't returned with it, because things were _different_ , and Daisy was different, and it was bad enough trying to navigate a barrage of supernatural threats without the rest of it. The threats took precedence, because of course they did, and then...

As it turned out, she'd left Daisy in the dust for nothing.

"Basira?" Jon asked.

Basira blinked, and the lounge came back into focus, low lighting and the quiet murmur of a few other patrons on the opposite end. She checked her surroundings, habitual, and leaned back into the seat. "Right," she said. "First thing? Georgie called."

She might as well have slapped Jon. He gaped at her. She couldn't stop noticing how red his eyes were at the edges. "Wh-- why?" he asked. "Are they _okay_?"

"Seem to be," Basira said. Melanie's voice in the background had certainly been at normal volume, unable to resist a few interjections. They hadn't exchanged many words, though, and all of them stilted and awkward. Another failure, Basira thought, with another twinge, but she pushed the matter out of her mind, forcefully. "She just said she had something to tell you. Wouldn't tell me, and I didn't ask. Told her you didn't have service."

Jon fumbled with his coat at once, laying hands on his mobile, before Martin's fingers came around to steady him. "It's almost midnight," Martin reminded him.

"Yes, of course," Jon said, stilling, though he didn't let go of the phone.

Basira's eyes were on the bandages wrapped tightly around his right hand, on the visible scars smattering his face that seemed worse than before, on Martin's lingering touch. On the coats that they hadn't yet removed, despite the warmth of the lounge.

Instinct told Basira that things were much worse than she thought, and instinct told her to go forward with things _now_ , anything else be damned. Didn't matter that they'd wake Georgie and Melanie up, didn't matter that Jon's eyes were bloodshot and there was a pale tinge to Martin's face, didn't matter that a treacherous part of Basira longed for sleep. That she was tired down to the marrow on a level she'd never felt before, a level that simple sleep could never fix.

Instinct had told her to keep chasing lead after lead after lead, too.

"Good point," Basira said, and she fished around for a room key and tossed it over to Martin. It was his turn to blink wide-eyed at her. "We'll talk in the morning, yeah?"

* * *

That didn't mean that she wasn't up early, but Jon was too, already dressed and relatively bright-eyed when he opened the door to his and Martin's room, across the hall from Basira's. But his eyes were still red, like he hadn't gotten sleep in days. He gave her a silent gesture to wait, then disappeared back into the room for a minute, and Basira took a step back and leaned against the opposite wall, arms folded.

When Jon emerged again, he shut the door behind him and stood across from her, mirroring her posture. Without the scarf, she could see that the scar across his throat was reddened too, along with the round scars peppered there.

"How is he?" Basira asked, trying to tear her eyes away from that.

"Better," Jon said, though it looked like it was taking everything he had not to immediately retreat back into the hotel room. "He just... needs some time to wake up."

"Sure," Basira said, and she made herself look into his face instead. "Mind explaining why you look even more like hell than usual?"

Jon's expression shuttered, twitchy nervousness giving way to something more controlled. He took a breath, as if gathering strength, but his eyes couldn't quite meet hers, all of a sudden. He did that sometimes. Daisy used to think it meant that he had something to hide, but it was just him. "It seems the... _ritual_ has left me more compromised than I thought," Jon said, quiet and flat and increasingly bitter. "My hand isn't healing, and the other scars, the _marks_ , are getting worse. The incident with the Lonely? It was drawn to me. Seeking an apocalypse of its own."

Basira followed implications and conclusions in a matter of seconds, and numbness spread, from her head to her limbs. For a second, she couldn't think at all, as if the freeze response had seized her, as if that would keep her alive when abruptly confronted with more threats than she could have possibly imagined.

But she really had to stop being surprised by this sort of thing. Best just to always assume the worst and roll with it, though it took her a few moments to gather her thoughts. "Okay," Basira said, and her voice sounded far away in her ears. "World's still here, so... how did you stop it?"

Jon made an odd face, like she'd caught him off-guard, and his response faltered, for a second. "I... it was a statement," he said. "It just... felt like the right thing to do, so... I started to make one, and the Lonely didn't appreciate being put into words, I suppose. Seemed to drive it off."

"Okay," Basira said again, because why the hell not? It made as much sense as any other stupid, awful thing hounding them. "Well... keep doing that, then, if it happens again."

Jon's arms unfolded. He almost looked offended, as he stared at her, nonplussed, like she'd suddenly sprouted too many eyes. "What?" he asked. "Not even a mention of how _exponentially_ dangerous this makes me?"

Basira ground her teeth together. It was logical, sound, to consider that exponential threat might require more direct action. But a lot of things had seemed logical, not so long ago. Or else she'd just convinced herself that they had. "Daisy's already asked me to kill her," she said, after a moment of stewing in that. "So my hands are a bit full right now." Jon's brows drew together, and Basira shook her head, firm and final. "I'm not helping you commit suicide by ex-cop, just so we're clear."

"That's... I'm not asking for that," Jon said, floundering a little. "But should the situation get out of hand, it's a possibility that we have to consider."

Basira understood, then, why they were talking about this out here. A hotel hallway was not exactly the ideal spot for this kind of conversation, except that Martin was in the room, and Jon didn't seem keen on going any further than just outside the door. "Then we can consider it when you're not trying to hide it from your boyfriend," Basira said, and Jon exhaled like she'd punched him. "I won't mention this to him, but I'm not enabling it either. 'Cause lately, he's had the clearest head of any of us."

Jon looked away, eyes on the ugly carpet. His arms folded again, more like he was holding himself together this time. "He has, hasn't he?" he murmured, barely audible through the croak that his voice had been reduced to.

Basira watched him, something thick and dissatisfied in her throat. "I'm sorry," she said abruptly.

Jon lifted his head, once again completely nonplussed as he blinked at her. "Pardon?"

"At least one of those marks is from me," Basira said. The reddened scars drew the eye, and that wasn't even all of them. Just the visible ones. Martin had made sure to list every last one to her.

Jon shook his head reflexively. "It's not on you--"

"Isn't it?" Basira interjected. "I brought you there. I tried calling the shots, and it got us jack and shit." And how tremendously short-sighted, to think that she'd been _doing_ something. Making the hard decisions, the necessary decisions, and for what? To help usher in the apocalypse? Well... she had a bullet with Elias's name on it, and that would be the easiest decision she'd ever make, if she got the chance. "Checked your eyes, lately?"

Jon's jaw worked stubbornly. "Yes," he said quietly, reluctantly, "I've noticed." But he drew himself up and fixed her with something approaching a stern glare, and Basira had the passing, ridiculous thought that it was a bit like being lectured by a teacher. "That doesn't make it your doing. It's Jonah's. You were just trying to handle things as best you could, Basira, and I-- I went there of my own accord. We've all made questionable decisions. You're--" he let out something that might have been a harsh laugh, "you're hardly exceptional in that regard."

Basira wanted to keep arguing, but she had enough self-awareness to know that she just wanted to argue with _something_. To take all of her ineffective frustration and condense it into something tangible, something that she could work her way through until she came out on the other end with a new understanding or a victory. But she got the feeling that Jon was in a similar mood, and she didn't think she could bear _losing_ an argument with him, of all people, right now.

"Yeah," Basira said. "Think I'd prefer it if you were angry, though." That, at least, would be something to work with, something she knew how to handle.

Jon gave her an inscrutable look. "Well," he said lightly, leaning back against the door, "pity."

Christ, he managed to be annoying even when he was being nice, but Basira was mollified when the door opened, and Jon nearly toppled backwards.

Martin yelped and caught him. "Sorry!" he said, steadying Jon against him. "Didn't realize. Um..." He blinked across the hallway, as Jon righted himself with a sigh and Basira smirked. "Hi, Basira. Come in?"

* * *

Jon's phone lay on the bed a bit later, speaker on, ringing. Jon was on his feet nearby, too twitchy to sit, even though Basira had reassured him that everything had seemed fine on Georgie's end. Basira had taken one of the chairs belonging to a round table near the window, carefully expressionless, and Martin sat on the edge of the bed, an unhappy frown embedded into his face. A tape recorder whirred on the nightstand.

There was a soft click, and then: "Jon?" Georgie's voice said.

"Georgie," Jon said, a bit too fast, and he cleared his throat, speaking past the aches. "Ah... you're on speaker. Are you alright?"

A moment passed, heavy and stilted. "We're fine," Georgie said, neutral, which was somehow worse than a voice prickling with anger, and then her voice grew strained. "You're not, um... you're not hurt, are you?"

Jon froze, his eyes flicking down to his bandage-wrapped hand. There was no good way to answer that question, not when she would see right through any response he offered. "For a given value of hurt," he said, noncommittal, "not particularly."

Something shifted, over the phone, along with a mutter that vaguely sounded like " _oh my god_." Which was accentuated by Martin making a face at him and what may have been an eye roll from Basira, in the corner of Jon's sight. Then Georgie's voice picked up again, quick and resolute, like she was in a hurry to get it out. "Well, that dream? The one about what happened to me? It changed."

Jon blinked, glancing at Martin, whose frown shifted somewhat as he glanced at Basira, whose eyes widened by a fraction as she leaned forward. "How so?" Jon asked cautiously, careful as he stepped around the hungry static of curiosity.

The dreams hadn't seemed all that different to him, these past few nights, except that he couldn't remember anything from Thursday, between sinking into an agonizing unconsciousness and waking up the next morning. But the dreams were always ephemeral and distant, the fear and the Eye at his back sharp and immediate, and everything else about himself and his surroundings hazy and fluid, flooded with the raw radiation of _watching_ and _being watched_.

"Well, I didn't even get the dream on Thursday," Georgie said, "and after that... it all looks mostly the same, and plays out the same, except you... you look like someone beat the hell out of you, now. Like all of your scars are just... bleeding. And it's like... something's _there_. With me. With us."

Martin looked a little pale at the edges again, and Basira had a frown now. Jon swallowed. "That, ah..." he said, and no crackling insight arrived between his ears, even when he put some tentative strain into it for a moment. The words that left him were only a guess. "Well, some things have happened, and that... sounds about right, actually."

"You don't understand," Georgie said vehemently, taking him by surprise. "Melanie's been getting them too, and hers didn't change. It's just mine. I think it's... what did you call it? The End?" The edges of Jon's vision went fuzzy, for a moment, and he brushed a knee against the edge of the bed, to orient himself with a sense of direction. "It's... _there_ , in my dream, like it was when... when all of that happened the first time. It's never been there before, but... it is now. It keeps looking at you."

Jon stared down at the phone, a tickle of nausea pushing up against the back of his throat. "Oh."

"Great," Basira said, toneless.

"I just wanted to let you know," Georgie said stiffly. "Melanie wanted you to know. She's worried. So," her voice took on a edge, "whatever has been happening, Jon, you _need_ to stop and, and get away from it, because something about this dream is just... is just _wrong_ \--"

"Yeah, it's _not_ that simple," Martin interjected suddenly, viciously, in a way that promised more.

Jon held up his unburned hand, and Martin's mouth clicked shut, unhappy frown slotting back into place. "Thank you for letting me know," Jon said, around the ache in his throat. The tightness there, that had nothing to do with rituals or stolen oxygen. "I'm... I'm sorry that you're still experiencing them. That Melanie is."

"I don't want to hear it," Georgie said, and Martin's mouth twitched with something that quelled as he glanced up at Jon. "Just... be careful."

Another click, and the line went dead.

Slowly, Jon reached down for his phone and swiped at it, then returned it to his coat. It trembled in his grip, between fingers that didn't quite want to steady themselves. The mere fact that she'd even called at all... well. He had little idea what any of it meant, and only one previous and recent thread to connect to it. The fact that it was invading Georgie's dreams... he strained to remember what he'd seen, these past few nights.

But all he could remember was the taste of _fear_ , from everyone but her. All he could feel was the shadow of the Eye's almighty gaze, drowning everything else out. Drowning him and his thoughts.

"Well," Basira said, leaning back into the chair and drumming her fingers on the table a few times. The sound broke through Jon's rumination. "That's reassuring."

"Very," Jon said, wry, and then he rounded on Martin. "I suppose next time, I'll make any calls _privately_?"

Martin didn't look remotely contrite, as he squared his shoulders and gave Jon an oddly ferocious scowl. What was this, some utterly bizarre form of jealousy? "I'm not going to stand by," Martin said, measured and forceful, "and let her blame you for... for cosmic monstrosities having it out for you."

Jon frowned at him, feeling as if he'd lost a thread somewhere, and said, "I'm sorry, am I missing something?" But Martin appeared to be on a roll.

"It's not your fault that Elias used you as a-- a fucking _experiment_ ," Martin continued, a tremor running through his voice. Too angry for petty jealousy, Jon thought, and clearly sparked by more than a simple and brief conversation over the phone, in which Martin hadn't even played a part. "And it's not your fault that whatever she saw in that dream has its eyes on you. Okay?"

"He's got a point," Basira added, before Jon could get a word in edgewise.

" _Thank_ you!" Martin said, gesturing with vague triumph, as if he'd won this bewildering conversation.

"But you know," Basira said, her voice drying out, "I'd really prefer it if you two had spats when I _wasn't_ in the room."

A spat about what, Jon wasn't entirely sure, but he glanced between Basira and Martin and decided to leave it be. Not least because his head was drumming up a dull ache to go with the rest of the soreness creeping always and eternally throughout his body, as of late, and they hadn't even started what they'd come here to do.

"Alright?" Jon said cautiously, and he took a seat next to Martin on the bed, only for Martin to scoop up his good hand and hold on to it tightly. At the very least, Martin looked himself now, spots of angry color on his cheeks flooding the pale tinge out, though his expression softened somewhat as he leaned into Jon. "We still need to... figure out how this fits into everything."

Basira leaned forward again, demeanor shifting in a way that felt like a spotlight narrowing. "Sounds like you have some idea of what Georgie was talking about?"

Jon nearly rubbed at his eyes with his bandaged hand, before he remembered that it hurt. He was in no mood to extract his other hand from Martin's, so he settled for blinking heavily. He was too used to being exhausted and trying to keep them open, and so it had taken some time to notice, but his eyes were starting to feel strange too. Itching not quite like the tangible scars, but like he'd spent too long looking at particularly bright computer screen. At something he shouldn't have.

"Somewhat," Jon sighed. "Besides the scars _reacting_ , I... felt a similar thing in the Lonely. Like it was _looking_ at me. I've never felt anything like it before."

The duffel bag rested in a corner, full of statements and tapes and the extra recorder, piled on top of _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_. The rime-lined tape within weighed on Jon's mind still.

Basira's fingers tapped at the table again, restless. "Isn't that the Eye's thing?"

"Supposedly," Jon said. "Though Magnus's ritual and its near-success indicate that they're all more intimately connected than anyone has given them credit for."

Silence followed, short but heavy, and there was nothing to block out the echo of Georgie's voice in Jon's ears: _it keeps looking at you._ Jon breathed deep, in and out, as if that would steady him. He couldn't very well start letting himself drown in the fear of what that meant. He only had one prior example, but historically, getting mired in fear led to nothing good, right now. Somehow, he thought that this particular entity would be much more difficult to fend off than the Lonely.

"The End, though?" Martin said, strain threading through his voice, and his fingers tightened around Jon's. "Can you _see_ anything?"

Basira watched expectantly, and Martin too, angled into Jon, eyes nervous. What else watched? What else looked at him with eyes that he could not see? Jon took another stabilizing breath, and the back of his head flickered and snapped with the barest effort. Something scraped behind his frontal bone, as if seeking exit, and it was even easier to let it fill his skull to the brim, with two recent statements under his belt.

But knowledge didn't just fill every possible corner of his mind. It overflowed, a pitching, swirling tide of too much, _too_ _much_ , rolling down past his cerebellum as if it meant to fill his entire body too. Jon's sore throat convulsed with a lurching of his stomach and a sick twisting of lightheaded vertigo. He was hardly aware of Martin's hands suddenly on him, of Basira yanking a waste bin over, but he didn't quite throw up. He shuddered above the bin and blinked with great difficulty and swallowed hard, several times, letting the nauseating hunger to _know_ trickle out of his thoughts.

He had the fleeting thought that it would eat him from the inside out, if he let it.

"Jon?" Martin was saying, even more strained, hands finding a rhythm between steadying and skittish.

"That, um," Jon said, head against the rim of the bin, "that may be a bit beyond me, at the moment." He let out a harsh breath, almost a derisive laugh. "I could _see_ something, it was just... too much to grasp."

He lifted his head, swallowing again as the room tilted, and gingerly set the bin down on the floor. Martin's hands remained hovering.

"I'm alright," Jon added, caught between Martin's worried gaze and Basira's apprehensive one. He wasn't, not really. Everything hurt, his throat, his scars, his eyes. But it wasn't overwhelming, yet. "But I don't... I don't believe we'll be solving this one any time soon."

* * *

They ended up situated around the table. It only came with two chairs, but they pushed the table over, and Martin remained on the bed, while Jon took the other chair. The order from room service occupied half of the table's surface, but it hadn't been touched yet. Jon no longer felt so wobbly, but neither was he hungry in the usual sense, his insides not quite settled from whatever _that_ had been. Martin, meanwhile, seemed preoccupied with worrying over him, and Basira seemed preoccupied with worrying in general, although it wasn't nearly as apparent on her as it was on Martin.

Jon, for his part, deliberately set it all aside. The unwilling worry in Georgie's voice tempered by a frosty anger, the _hunger_ that Jon still felt for knowledge so thoroughly beyond him that it only made him sick, the fact that they could hardly go a day without some inexplicable and threatening new development.

It didn't matter right now. All that mattered, at the moment, was Daisy.

"So, is this like a seance?" Basira asked, settling back into her chair once more when the table had been moved.

It was delivered so casually that Jon paused in his retrieval of the tape recorder from the nightstand and glanced around to give her a frown.

"Kidding," Basira said, waving an absent hand in his direction.

"Feels like one, though," Martin said, as he pushed plates to the edge of the table to make room.

Jon snatched the recorder up. "It's not a seance," he said, stepping back around the bed. "It's just that familiarity might help and, well..." He took a seat across from Basira and set the recorder down between them. "This is as close as we'll get." He eyed Basira across the table, recorder in the middle and plates on either side. "Now, are you _sure_ you want to do this?"

Basira's mouth settled into a thin line. Her posture, leaned back into the chair with an arm tossed over the side and a leg drawn up, with fingers toying at the edges of her braids, was deceptively relaxed, but it took her a few moments to answer. What was going on in her head? She'd been surprising lately, to say the least. It wasn't like she _hadn't_ been willing to use any means at her disposal, before, but everything else about her seemed... different, a few steps to the left of what he'd grown used to. Hesitant, no longer so tunnel-visioned. Shying away from more decisions than not.

"Yeah," Basira said. "I'm sure."

Jon bit down on the urge to ask again. "Very well," he said and reached out to hit record. When he spoke, his voice crackled with static. "Tell me what you know about Daisy's situation so far."

Basira straightened in the chair. "As far as I know," she said, "no bodies identified as Trevor Herbert or Julia Montauk have turned up. Hasn't been any sighting of that Not Sasha thing, either, though I wasn't expecting it. I've been to all of Daisy's usual haunts and found no trace of her. The cabin you were at, that was the farthest one, and if she didn't turn up there, well... clearly, she hasn't been utilizing them. I've been keeping an ear out for any unusual disappearances or murders, especially concerning any of the avatars we know of, but there's been nothing promising there, either. I've even started tracking Herbert and Montauk's past movements, because I don't think Daisy would have given up the chase. But it's still turned up nothing. This place, the District... Herbert spent a long time in this area, so I thought that maybe there'd be a stronger scent here, or whatever you want to call it, if you needed that sort of thing. Just instinct, I guess."

Basira paused to breathe, mouth turning down in a troubled frown.

"Daisy asked me to kill her," she said. "But I can't find any trace of her. That means she's deliberately covering her tracks, and I'm still trying to work out why. Does she not actually want me to kill her after all? I--"

"I think that's enough," Jon interrupted, and his teeth nearly cut into his tongue. Static filled his head and wound down his sore throat, writhing and insistent, and he wanted Basira to keep talking. He wanted to hear the fear, the doubt, the hesitation, the failure, the guilt roiling underneath it all. He wanted to hear how endless of a chase it would be, how Basira's doubts would never be assuaged with answers or closure, how even closure wouldn't be enough, if it meant turning a gun on her partner. He wanted to hear what the Hunt would inexorably take from her. But Jon took a shuddering breath and pressed a few fingers into his burned palm, under the table where Martin wouldn't see. "More than enough."

Basira settled back into the chair again, slowly, the frown lingering at the edges of her mouth. Jon was cognizant of Martin's eyes moving between them. He wanted to know what Martin was thinking too. He'd been wanting that more frequently, as of late, a revolting background reverb of thought becoming as commonplace as idle thoughts about daily routines. He could ignore it, most of the time, particularly when he wasn't overly _hungry_. Didn't meant it wasn't there.

Was it just a product of using his abilities more frequently? A side effect to weather?

"Jon?" Martin asked. "You okay?"

Well... he could turn it all in another direction, at least.

Jon nodded and lay a hand over the tape recorder, though he didn't turn it off. He blinked and reoriented his thoughts, recalling the unbearable press of dirt and darkness and the lifeline of Daisy's trembling voice. Recalling the quiet, as she sat there in his office with earbuds in while he mulled over the latest deeply unsatisfying statement. He _looked_ , and pressure bands wrapped around his head, shrinking in like a vice around the clawing beneath his skull.

It hurt. He kept at it. Something else resisted him, and he had the fleeting recollection of some of his dreams. The way they were empty, and not because the statement giver had died. Because they were shielded by something else, by the Eye's apparent inability to look back at itself, by something that could stand against it.

Daisy didn't want to be found. She didn't want to die, even though she did, and she didn't actually want to put it on another's hands, except that it was an inescapable corner she'd been backed into. Jon might have choked on nothing as he strained. _I'm sorry, Daisy_ , he thought.

The bands of pressure tightened, like his brain was about to pop out of his skull, like jabbing spikes of pain were drilling away at every bit of gray matter, and then Jon blinked again and found Martin's agitated hand pressing against his back, and his forehead pressed against his arm, and his arms cushioning him against the press of the table, all but cradling the tape recorder.

Jon groaned, bitter defeat coating his tongue as he reoriented himself with the feel of the hotel room around him, with the feel of his many aches and scars jabbing at the edges of his perception without end. Oh, he was going to have _quite_ the successful time against Magnus, if he couldn't even find one single avatar. "I'm... not sure if this will work."

He didn't miss Basira's disappointed sigh, though she said nothing, only shifted in the chair. Jon didn't dare glance up at her, but he could only imagine the look she was giving him.

"That's alright," Martin said, the bright determination in his voice very obviously forced. He hovered as Jon pushed himself up and stared down at the table, instead of at either of the room's other two occupants. "We can... we can think of something else. Find another angle, you know?"

Something shifted and clicked in Jon's mind. Slowly, he lay a hand on the tape recorder again and felt it whirring beneath his fingers. He made himself look up at Basira, who was expressionless as she regarded him across the table. Masking her disappointment, at least. He didn't understand the gesture.

"When you said it was instinct that led you to Trevor's old stomping ground," Jon said, and his mouth felt thick, like he was only just getting over a weeks-long cold, "what did you mean?"

No static accompanied the words. It didn't even try to, after the beating it had just taken. A flash of hesitation crossed Basira's face. "I dunno," she said, and the answer didn't come as easily this time. "Wasn't like anything else was working, you know? I'm getting a bit desperate, to be honest, and you mentioned wanting a go at it, so I suppose I started thinking... what kind of weird thing would Jon do?"

No static rose up to coat Jon's sore throat, but that didn't mean that he didn't _want_. He wanted to know Basira's thoughts, about what a never-ending chase she was already mired in. To know Martin's thoughts, about whatever lengths they'd have to go to in order to put a stop to this. To know what Georgie's dreams meant, what _looked_ at him while he looked back, across nightmares and empty worlds. "Was it something like an Eye instinct?" Jon asked, fingers kneading the tape recorder. "Or a Hunt instinct?" Hopefully not a Web thing, at any rate.

Basira frowned at him. "I'm... not sure," she said, her eyes shifting between him and the recorder and Martin. "Maybe?" She fixed him with a hard stare. "I'm neither of those things, by the way. No matter who I work for or who I associate with."

Jon huffed. Basira glared at him.

Martin wasn't hovering anymore, now that Jon was no longer sagging against the table, but he sat at the edge of the bed with his attention caught. "What are you thinking?" Martin asked.

The answer came, sudden and certain, Jon's scattered thoughts snapping into place on the heels of Daisy's voice in his head. _I never really wanted it to be over._

"I have a terrible idea," Jon said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Mention of suicide.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

"This isn't working," Basira said, frustrated, in the driver's seat.

"Yeah," Martin said, sardonic, from the backseat, "'cause it's a terrible idea."

The reservoir glittered in the moonlight, and the moors were cloaked in shadow and mist. Jon didn't take his eyes from the low-lying haze, from the thin trees and rolling hills, but the cold that had seeped into the car since Basira had turned it off was of a regular autumn sort. The emptiness of the car park was normal, too, this late at night. He didn't think the Lonely would be coming back any time soon. Particularly not now, when he _wanted_ to be seen.

But that was easier said than done.

"Might help if we weren't just sitting here," Jon said, pointed, in the passenger's seat.

Basira tilted her head to give him a half-hearted glare. "I thought that was the _point_ ," she said. "Look, it's not the worst idea," and Martin scoffed behind her, "but like hell we're going out into the hills. Here, I know routes and cover, and we can actually get away, if we need to." She tapped restless fingers against the steering wheel. Her other hand rested against the gun in her lap. " _You_ just need to sort out whatever it is you're doing."

"Or," Martin said, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the front seats, "we could go back to the hotel and think of something else. Because, Jon, I'm starting to think that you don't actually have the slightest idea of what you're doing."

Jon sighed and held on to the tape from Basira and reminded himself of the weight of the recorder in his coat pocket. He kept his gaze fixed ahead, through the windshield. Searching, straining, eyes peeled for any hint of movement in the trees or beyond. There was an unbearable sort of tension to it, waiting and waiting for something to show its face. Waiting for something to strike. To take the bait. He would've thought it enough, for the Hunt.

"It's not..." Jon began, and he had to clear his throat, to get the words out past the sore twinging. "I don't know. It's difficult to explain. And it's not like there's a rulebook."

They'd been at it since yesterday. Basira had been surprisingly willing to go along with it, and Martin far less so, but two to one saw them out there, in different parts of Peak District at times and places where there were little to no visitors around. Jon only suspected that the Hunt preferred wilderness as a rule, but at the very least, any violence that occurred wouldn't catch anyone else in the crossfire.

What he did know was that the Hunt apparently didn't want its ritual to end. That it didn't want the chase to be over. And perhaps that was the problem, if it had little inclination to seek him out as a result. His throat certainly hurt, which was nothing new, but the scar didn't seem any worse for the wear.

"Aren't you supposed to be some kind of signal fire for them?" Basira asked.

"That's..." Jon said, "that's the _impression_ I got, yes."

Even when he _knew_ something, that didn't always mean it was easy to interpret, and he was beginning to think that he'd gotten something wrong here. Misunderstood something critical, if he could sit here stiff and tense, waiting to be caught, waiting to catch, if the knowledge of being _hunted_ by god only knew what, and hunting in turn, wasn't enough to summon anything. He had tape in hand and a clear picture of Daisy in his head. The memory of Julia's knife at his neck, of Trevor looming over him, was vivid, even if it hadn't left a permanent mark.

And still... nothing.

Perhaps it _was_ a rather haphazard. But despite the two days they'd spent at this with nothing to show for it, Jon couldn't shake the feeling that he was on to _something_.

"Well," Basira said, "maybe you don't know everything."

Martin scoffed again. "You think?"

Finally, Jon tore his eyes away from the moors and shifted in the seat, to take in the sight of Martin leaning forward from the back and frowning at him. He hadn't particularly liked overruling Martin on the matter, and it was a testament to the kind of person he was, that Martin hadn't been complaining all that much until recently. But Jon could see the uneasiness written all over Martin now, no doubt approaching critical levels, and he knew what it was.

"I know you don't care for this," Jon said, softening the edges of his voice. "But I promise you, I'm not trying to do anything _stupid_. I just think that we need to... push the envelope. And I need you to trust me on that."

Martin's frown gave way to a reluctant hesitation, as he looked askance at Jon, as if not quite convinced by the sincerity. Jon knew how especially dangerous the Hunt was. How a Hunter could no doubt kill him easily. But he wasn't here for that.

"No," Basira said, and Jon turned a frown on her. "It's not about trust, anyway. Obviously we're going to have to stick our necks out to get anything done, but there's a way to do it that doesn't involve making ourselves into sitting ducks."

"I suppose _you've_ got a brilliant idea?" Jon asked.

Basira's expression turned stony, and she shifted to face the wheel once more, angling her glare out towards the moors.

Which wasn't fair, Jon knew. She'd been willing to trust him enough to go along with this in the first place, and she had a few more weapons tucked away in the car, courtesy of Daisy's safe house stash. A small arsenal to keep them safe, and she was only trying to do so now.

And perhaps that was the problem.

Jon let out another sigh, long and slow. "Alright," he said, steeling himself, and then he opened the door.

He stepped out and shut it against the chorus of protests, but Martin practically vaulted out of the backseat and Basira was quick to follow, as Jon crossed the car park and made for the path that would lead to the Longdendale Trail. Basira readied her handgun at her side even as she hurried forward, her eyes scanning the nearby trees. And that was the issue, Jon thought. They couldn't be on the defensive. He couldn't be protected.

The Hunt didn't want its ritual to end. Perhaps that was preventing it from seeking him out at all, but if it wasn't... he _had_ to draw it to him. He couldn't muscle past it, when he _looked_ to find Daisy or Trevor or Julia. Not as he was, not yet. But he'd been able to see _through_ the Lonely, and that had to count for something.

He just needed to be a target worth hunting, first.

"Jon!" Martin said incredulously, footsteps quick across the pavement. Jon cast a glance back, just to reassure himself of where Martin was relative to him, and saw that Martin had a fire poker from the cabin in hand. "Are you an _idiot?_ No, no, don't answer that. Of course you are."

"Get back in the car," Basira said, closer to a growl.

"We can't play it safe," Jon said, and he didn't slow down, even though everything ached, in this blessedly normal cold. "We're never going to find anything, if we do."

Basira swore under her breath, somewhere behind him. "Fine," she snapped. "Martin, get back in the car."

"Are you kidding me?" Martin demanded. "I'm not leaving Jon. _Or_ you."

"This isn't the time to play hero," Basira said, and she sounded like she was seriously considering hitting at least one of them over the head with the butt of her gun. "What, are you gonna stab someone with that?"

Jon reached the head of the path, and something cracked in the trees ahead, like a twig breaking underfoot. He came to a dead stop, his eyes raking across the gloom, and silence reigned, broken only by the stirring of a gentle wind through the pines. But though Jon's gaze was hungry and searching, nothing out of the ordinary moved where he could see.

Not yet.

"Martin," Jon said, quiet, turning slightly without putting his back to the trees, "I think you should go b--"

He was alone.

Jon forgot about not putting his back to anything, as he rotated on his heel and stared in shock at the empty pavement, the empty car park. Basira's car was still there, but he could see from here that it was empty too. Jon's heart leapt up into his throat, and he didn't care that his panicked, painful shout of, "Martin!" echoed throughout the trees.

No answer returned.

"Martin!" Jon called out again, even though it lanced through his throat like the slash of a knife. "Basira!"

The only answer was a soft mechanical hum, and Jon shoved Basira's tape into his coat, then pulled out the tape recorder. It was on, whirring as always, another tape nestled within it.

Jon's throat _hurt_ , and the scar there felt tender to the touch, when he carefully lifted his bandaged hand and ran dazed fingers over it. His mind felt numb, empty, robbed of the intensity that had possessed it moments before, as if fear had driven it right out, and it only occurred to him distantly, then, that perhaps he hadn't needed to be a target after all. Perhaps all he'd needed to do was spend a moment actually _hunting_.

Well... that was a degree of improvement, at least. That he was able to notice a bit more quickly, now, when something _else_ was getting into his head. When a desire to find and chase wasn't entirely _his_. It had almost taken too long, back in the Lonely, and it was still too long here, because Martin and Basira had vanished, and another faraway crackle like the shifting of underbrush came from somewhere within the moors, as Jon spun back around to face the shadowy trees, heart beating wildly.

At least he knew for certain, now, that unknowingly reaching out to the powers was far, far too easy. Dangerously easy.

Jon glanced down at the tape recorder in his hand and took a deep breath. "This is..." he said, shaky, barely able to get it out around the aching in his throat, "not ideal."

He gave up speaking and waited vainly for some kind of response. Like Martin's voice might come back to him across its crackling static once again.

Silence.

Jon _looked_ , and the air shivered, and he knew that Martin and Basira were alive, at least. His connection to the Eye remained relatively strong, though something tickled against his throat, warm and sticky, and he knew, then, with a jolt of terrible understanding, that he wouldn't easily be making a statement here.

Something shifted, up ahead, faint and impossible to identify. The wind snaked through the trees, less of a gentle tumbling and more of a whisper, and Jon couldn't keep his eyes on enough of the shadows around him. The scar at his throat was _opening_ , slow and inexorable, and his breathing labored to get around it.

But Martin was out here somewhere, wherever and whatever this was. Basira was out here. _Daisy_ was, and Jon swallowed around the pain in his throat and willed himself to calm down, to focus. To remember the sound of Martin's voice, kind when Jon didn't deserve it, scared and trembling throughout the emptiness of the Lonely. Daisy's voice, softer than he ever would have imagined, after the coffin. And Basira, hesitant, hurting: _I'm sorry._

Blood trickled sluggishly down Jon's throat, but that didn't mean that he couldn't _look_ , couldn't _hunt_. Jon took the deepest breath he could, then squared his shoulders and set off down the path, tape recorder in hand.

He didn't see the unnaturally thin shadow in the trees, the spindly, skulking thing that watched him pass, that crept after him in soundless pursuit.

* * *

Basira didn't see it happen. Something moved, to her right, and her head snapped in that direction, her arms going up and her finger bracing against the trigger.

But there was nothing, except the rest of the empty car park and the trees beyond. Basira didn't lower the gun, as she took a step back. Instinct screamed at her to leave, insistent and certain. She didn't always trust it, these days, but now?

"We need to get out of here," she said.

No one answered.

Basira risked a glance back and then spun around completely, gun still up, eyes going wide.

Jon and Martin were gone. As if they'd never been there at all.

" _Shit_ ," Basira said. Not good.

She didn't dare call out, mindful of anything else she could attract. She moved slowly, head turning this way and that and ears attuned to the slightest sounds, cataloging every detail around her. Wind rustled through the trees, a mocking imitation of company, as she made her way back to the car.

They weren't in there either, but Basira grabbed a shotgun from the trunk, strapped it around her shoulders, then crouched down with her back to the car and let herself have a moment to freak out, before the racing of her heart grew unbearable.

Fucking hell. Of course Jon had to go and disappear on her so that she couldn't be properly angry with him for this. But she was the one who'd let it carry on, even though the idea of trying to summon the Hunt to them was, in hindsight, stupid. Even if it didn't want to complete a ritual, it was still _dangerous._ But she'd just gone along with it, because she wasn't in the habit of trusting herself and her judgment anymore, because she didn't _want_ to make the calls anymore.

She had this bad habit of looking elsewhere for that, when doubtful enough, and an even worse habit of _needing_ a mission.

Jon hadn't even been wrong about being able to draw the damn thing in, apparently, but she should have just listened to Martin. Who was out here somewhere with a _fire poker_ , of all things. Christ.

Basira leaned back against the car and forced herself to think, to consider her options, her eyes restlessly roaming the car park.

She could stay here and lay low and wait to see what happened, see if the others found their way back. Actually, no-- she couldn't. She had little to no idea of what was happening, except this place reeked of the Hunt now, a warning prickle down her spine that not even doubt could make her question, and she didn't know if Jon or Martin would be able to make it back from... wherever they'd disappeared to.

She had to do something. Anything. Had to think her way out. She'd done it before, even if there had been no bloody point to suffering through the Unknowing. It was only the tip of the iceberg, when it came to things that she'd been all too wrong about, but the fact of the matter was, she'd _made_ it. She'd survived.

She'd been the only one.

Basira swallowed hard, trying to keep her breathing steady through the painful twisting deep within her chest.

No. No, that was _not_ going to happen again.

She didn't know how much more of it she could take, but Jon had come back. Daisy had come back. Basira hadn't appreciated it then, numbed out and exhausted and caught up in the shouldering of pointless burdens.

But she'd found her way past exhausted, as of late, to an even more bone-deep tired. Too tired to keep being angry with them for leaving, for coming back different, for making everything murky and hard. Too tired to put up with more _bullshit_ , and so Basira straightened and kept her eyes roaming, her gun ready.

It was not going to happen again. Her only other option was to sit here and wallow, and she was _not_ going to do that.

If this was the Hunt, that meant Daisy was here, or she would be, if Basira went on a hunt of her own. Daisy was _hiding_ , and Basira was going to drag her out by the ears, if she had to. Jon had killed an entire avatar, apparently, and he had as much reason as Basira did to fight his way out. And Martin had his stupid fire poker and just as much reason, so... they'd be fine. Probably. She'd find them too, after Daisy.

Anything else was unacceptable.

Everything still looked the same: the car park, the road, the woods, all drenched in soft shadows and crisp moonlight. The Hunt would, in theory, be stronger, if Basira went for the woods. Something about its primal nature, according to Jon. It would be weaker, if Basira took to the road, which wound back towards Padfield. Towards civilization.

If she was going to find Daisy, and if Daisy had enough presence of mind to hide her tracks, to hide away in order to spare Basira that pain, then the Hunt's hold on her wasn't absolute. Probably.

So Basira headed for the road, with her eyes peeled and her ears strained and her gun ready.

* * *

Martin jumped, when a shadow stirred in the corner of his eye. He whipped around to the left, fingers tight around the fire poker, but all he saw was the empty car park and Basira's car and the distant, twinkling shadow of the reservoir. His breath fogged as it left him, panicky and quick, but nothing like the Lonely. He gave it another second, and still nothing moved or made a sound. He was imagining things, probably, with how creepy this place was and how much he did not want to be here. Imagining that the trees were watching him.

"I don't like this, Jon," Martin said, trying not to sound as scared as he felt, and he turned back around and froze.

Jon wasn't there. Neither was Basira. The head of the path and the rest of the car park was empty, except for the car, and Martin spun and spun again, his eyes frantically sweeping the moonlit area, his breathing and his heartbeat picking up speed.

"Oh, no, no, no," Martin breathed, when a second and third look gave him nothing. "Jon!"

Silence, except for the wind.

"Jon!" Martin cried out, between shuddering breaths. "Basira!"

Nothing. And hardly a sound, save for the rustling of pine needles. It was cold and quiet, and Martin felt that down to his bones, familiar and terrible and numb.

No, he thought, sucking in a breath, trying to think straight. This wasn't the Lonely. He'd _know_ if it was the Lonely. The only fog was out in the moors, and everything here was too crisp and clear and exposed. It wasn't the Lonely. It _wasn't_ , because he _felt_ far too much, dizzying, mounting panic, and fear rushing in his ears, and he could remember his name and Jon's name and Basira's. He could remember everything, up to what had actually happened. It was like he'd blinked, and they'd just disappeared.

Martin wished he had the extra tape recorder all the same, but it was back in the hotel. He took another sweeping look around, to reassure himself this time. No fog. No Jon, no Basira, but no fog.

"Okay," Martin managed, breathy and panicked as he made himself _think._ "This is, um..." It clicked, then, at the back of his mind, sudden and certain. "The Hunt. Jon was right. Of course he was. _Idiot._ " It was said fondly, fiercely, with all of his might, and yet Jon didn't reappear, no matter how much Martin willed him to.

It was the Hunt, but Martin was alone, and the wind whistled through the pines, and he was _scared_. Being scared would only attract things that he most certainly did not want to find him, but he was alone, and he couldn't stop his heart from pounding.

Something moved again, peripherally, and Martin spun around once more, brandishing the poker.

The reservoir glittered ahead, down a slope past the car park. There was nothing nearby, except that Martin caught a glimpse of a shadow on the slope. Something moved between the trees there, too obscured for the moonlight to illuminate, and Martin froze again, trying to track it with his eyes.

He didn't know what it was. He didn't think it was friendly, and he wanted to run, except something told him that would be the worst thing he could do in this situation. His heart pounded, but he _had_ to keep the shadow in his sight. If he lost track of it, it could come at him from any angle, and he'd be none the wiser, and so he _couldn't_ let it out of sight.

Martin stepped forward across the pavement, his gaze following the shadow's movements, except that it was fast and had the advantage. He sped up, nearly at a jog, but the shadow folded into the trees, and Martin almost stopped. Almost froze, almost ran, except he _couldn't_. Something urgent told him not to, and he knew that he had to find it again, keep tracking it, keep following it, lest it do the same to him first.

It came at him from the side.

Blinding pain exploded against his head, and Martin yelped and staggered. He tried to bring the fire poker around, lashing out at whatever it was, but a greater force ripped it out of his hands, and he landed in a sprawl against the pavement. Martin got shaking hands underneath him, pushing himself up, but something seized him by the hair and _pulled_ , and he yelped again, reflexive tears blinding him even more as whatever it was kept pulling and he lost his sense of direction, until his head slammed against something metal, and he dropped.

"Don't move," a low voice growled.

Martin blinked through tears at the grimy pavement beneath him. He was near the car, he registered, coherent thought coalescing somewhere between the throbbing in his head and the terror in his throat. Nothing was trying to kill him just yet, and Martin managed to get his legs under him and turn, though he didn't think he could stand. He ended up leaning back against the car, head spinning, and he blinked up at the figure looming over him.

An older man that Martin didn't recognize, grizzled and wild-eyed, with a long knife held ready in his hands. He glared down at Martin and gestured with the knife, silently reinforcing exactly what would happen if Martin moved.

Martin let out a shaky breath. He wasn't planning on it, even though everything in him was shrieking at him to _do_ something to survive this. "Who...?" he began, and then he knew, despite the bruised ringing in his head. Who else would it be, except one of the other people they'd been looking for, in the hopes of finding Daisy? "You're... Trevor Herbert."

"That's right," the man said. "And you're going to stay put, nice and quiet, or I'll gut you. Got it?"

Martin couldn't get his breathing to steady, couldn't get the edges of his thoughts to align, but he managed a largely incoherent question, pushing it out of a mouth full of pins and needles: "Why?" Why not just kill him? Why go to the trouble of incapacitating him?

"That fucking Archivist will come for you," Trevor spat out. He looked deranged, and Martin had the fleeting thought that a lack of focus was an opening to attack. But that would just be stupid, when he could hardly get his vision to settle. "I can smell him on you. Couldn't find him, though. Just found you. But he'll come, and then his fucking watch dog will come for him. And then? I kill them both. Two monsters for Julia sounds about right."

Trevor stopped, as if struck. A shadow crossed his face, roiling, angry, and Martin wasn't ready for a boot to connect with his stomach.

He doubled over with a choked, nauseating inhale, his mind whiting out, but he caught Trevor's words, between fresh waves of pain.

"Don't you do that!" Trevor snapped, and Martin couldn't get it to make sense.

" _What are you talking about?_ " Martin gasped out, curling in on himself, hardly able to make sense of anything except the strong desire to throw up.

Trevor took a deep breath, as if trying to hold something in. "Those fucking magic words," he ground out anyway.

The anger was less explosive, this time, but it was no less terrifying, when Trevor seized Martin by the collar and brought the knife up far too close. It was terrifying, until Martin actually registered what Trevor had said.

A numb realization took root, spreading from his head to his chest to his limbs, calming the sheer panic coursing through his brain and lungs, pushing the ringing echoes of pain far away.

Magic words?

"Do it again," Trevor said, too close, "and I'll make it hurt."

Martin nodded, clenching his teeth together around the tingling understanding, and Trevor let him go, none too gently. Martin dropped down and let his back rest against the car once more, grateful for something to hold him up. As Trevor took a few steps back, muttering to himself, Martin forced himself to breathe deeply around the ache in his stomach, until his head stopped spinning quite so much.

Okay, he thought, feeling oddly distant from his own body, from the throbbing in his head and stomach. He couldn't think about it, right now, couldn't think about what it meant or how it could have happened or anything. Trevor meant murder, and Martin had no idea where Jon was or what state he was in. Daisy was probably nearby as well, and so was Basira.

And Martin had already been used as bait once, in the cold and the fog. The memory of it coursed hot underneath his skin, and he couldn't let himself think, couldn't let himself second guess. He couldn't let this man get anywhere near Jon or the others. He just had to _act._

Martin got a hand behind him and used the car to maneuver himself up, his other arm wrapped around his stomach. Trevor growled, low in his throat, but before the man could move farther than a step, Martin spoke.

" _Tell me,_ " Martin said, and the air crackled with static as he pushed himself to his feet, " _your story._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Hunt-typical violence and general unreality.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

Jon walked, as the path curved. The trees formed ranks of dark sentinels on either side of him, through which could be glimpsed smooth, sloping land all around, gray under the night sky. The sky was a glittering void, brighter out here in the hills, and the moon painted everything into strange shadows, ghostly imitations of the things from which they were cast. There was a clarity to it all, sharp and illuminating, of a kind that could only be found in the cold. A good kind of cold, not the kind found in empty, lonely worlds.

He'd been appreciating that sort of thing more, over the past few weeks. The way things looked and felt, and not in the voyeuristic, all-consuming manner of the Eye. It was almost enough to understand why someone would want to condense it into words that had a little more rhythm and cadence than simple prose.

It occurred to Jon that neither Martin nor Basira were out this way. But something was, and if they were going to make it out of here at all, he had to find it.

He should have been afraid, and he was, distantly. His head snapped in one direction, then another, any time the wind so much as whispered. He held himself ready, tape recorder in hand, and tried to swallow past the building, smarting pressure in his throat. But something pounded in his ears, something that wasn't fear, that drowned out all the rest. It kept him moving, searching, until he reached the end of the winding path.

It connected with the Longdendale Trail, and Jon glimpsed it ahead, a neat thing of curving white in the nighttime, bordering the moors and lined with dark wooden fence. A large gate sat within the fence, and Jon stopped when he saw it.

Unease crept up into his throat, and cold crept down his spine, like the brush of delicate fingers. The wind whistled through the trees behind him, hollow, mournful. Jon stared at the gate and the orderly trail beyond it, and he knew, dreamy but certain, that this was not what he was looking for.

He turned around. He stopped dead.

The thing loomed on the path, except there wasn't a path anymore. It was a shadow against the moonlight, tall and nauseatingly thin. Its face was an elongated nightmare of familiarity that twisted into a sickening smile as it bore down on him, too quick for its shambling height. A choked cry ripped itself out of Jon's throat as he stumbled backwards, even though it _hurt_ , and it bled, and he tried to _speak_ , bringing the recorder up, but the thing lunged.

" _St-_ " was all that Jon managed, before paper-thin fingers wrapped around his neck with titanium strength.

Some distant corner of Jon's mind understood that perhaps he'd been feeling disconnected from his own body, as of late. That things hadn't been hurting quite as much as they should have, even when they hurt. Because he might have blacked out otherwise, had sheer panic not kept him alert, kept him from escaping into unconsciousness, away from the fingers that dug into his cut open skin, and the edges of his brain and his breathing howled at him to get away, to make it _stop_ \--

"My _dearest_ colleague," the thing crooned, somewhere above his throttled scream, and the world around them moved. "Not happy to see your precious _Sasha_?"

Jon's back hit something as he tried to suck air down, and dimly, he registered it as the gate to the trail. His fingers scrabbled, at the hand around his throat, at the gate, empty of the recorder now and trying to peel away and push off, but the thing was nearly twice his height and stooped over on itself, its full weight bearing down on him as it grinned.

"I knew following that stupid old man would pay off," the thing that was not Sasha said. "And I admit, I may have gotten ahead of myself before. Killing you would be such a _waste_ , and this," it squeezed, and Jon's vision went fuzzy with with jagged, blinding pain, "just won't do. How are you going to call forth _our_ world if you can barely speak?"

 _Martin,_ Jon thought nonsensically, as his vision returned spinning.

"I think I'll have to wear you after all," Not Sasha said, hideously narrow face level with Jon's and warped with delight. "I'd prefer a dance, but the rewards will be worth a little downgrade."

Its other hand came around and latched on to Jon's arm, the one trying to push off of the gate. He gasped and shuddered, and he couldn't see, but he knew that the thin fingers sank _into_ his skin, a dull ache that became a sharp stinging that became a roar of hideous torment. Like his arm had been cut off and every nerve ending left bitterly exposed.

Not Sasha smiled, the rictus stretching back even further on either side of its thin, contorted face. Jon realized, even more distant, that he was screaming, or what amounted to it, anyway, with a cut throat still raw from a ritual incomplete and paper-thin fingers steely around his neck.

"And now to make sure you have a proper voice, _Archivist_ ," the thing said, and the fingers around Jon's throat sank in, too, as the thing's head leaned in and its body continued to warp, thinner and thinner, folding into itself, into Jon.

It hurt. It hurt in a way that squeezed every last bit of air out of his lungs, and Jon couldn't think, couldn't breathe, as his mind went white with thoughts of Martin, of Sasha, and _I'm sorry_ , _I'm so sorry._

The pain became so great that he lost his sense of it entirely, lost his sense of the bleeding scar at his throat and the burn wrapped around his hand, lost the sense of air stolen from his lungs, and his fingers crept of their own accord, shuddering and distinct, towards the latch that would open the gate.

* * *

The road was empty, and Basira knew that it would remain that way. Her footsteps echoed softly, a clatter of boots against dark pavement as she followed the white line. Her arms weren't quite aching, yet, from how tense the gun was in her grip, but they would be soon.

She didn't lower the gun. She couldn't. Not yet.

Reality felt strange, soft at the edges and sharp at the corners. Not quite the disorienting spin of the Stranger or the all-encompassing shadow of the Dark, but enough that Basira could track the ebbs and flows of oddity, even though the journey remained unchanging all around her. The road carried on, too straight and too long, without another living soul or vehicle in sight. Basira knew that she could keep walking for an eternity without encountering anything else, following an endless path of pavement and trees lit by soft moonlight.

But she knew what she was looking for, and it was more than her own eyes that studied the road and the trees. She felt the Eye on her: distant here, in a place where the Hunt prowled, but unblinking and implacable. She'd felt it for a long time, she thought. She'd almost been able to ignore it, by burying her head in every book she could find in the Institute and then some. Almost been able to tell herself that something hadn't been watching her, by collecting enough information to distract herself from the ever-present chill in her spine.

Except that collecting information was what _it_ did, and she'd been doing that long before she set foot in the Institute. How long had it been with her? Since the first time a lot of hush-hush paperwork had been slapped down in front of her burning, stinging hands?

It didn't matter, not when she had a job to do. Basira had told herself that a lot, lately. Someone had needed to bear the weight of the Institute, and so it didn't _matter_ that drinks with Melanie gave way to arguments tinged with anger that wasn't quite right, and it didn't matter that Martin gradually slipped out of sight like a ghost, and it didn't matter that Jon looked more and more hollow-eyed and exhausted. It didn't matter that Daisy came back and was uncertain and soft when Basira needed her to be certain and hard. It didn't matter.

What a load of bullshit.

But Basira would tell herself that one more time, and then some, because she needed to _see_ before she could track, and Jon had been right about something else: things felt clearer here, _in_ the Hunt. Easier, to move from seeing to tracking, and the growl of Daisy's voice rang in Basira's memory.

She followed its echoes, as the occasional snap of a twig or call of an animal came from within the trees, as if trying to distract her. She ignored it.

The road was empty, until it wasn't, but Basira didn't stop. Not when she blinked, and the shadowy outline of a figure became apparent, stock still in the middle of the road. Not when details became apparent underneath the moonlight with each successive blink and step, and Basira cataloged them all: Daisy's torn clothes and unkempt hair, her trembling shoulders and the unmistakable dark brown spatter of old blood on fabric.

Daisy had her back turned, and Basira stopped in the middle of the road, when only a few long meters separated them. She didn't lower the gun.

Silence pressed down like an impossible weight. Even the trees had gone quiet, the woods and the wind holding their breath, waiting to see who would break the taut thread of tension, who would make the first, decisive move.

"Felt you coming," Daisy said, and her voice _shook_ , strained and crumbling like the words edged their way past furiously gritted teeth. "Took everything I had not to chase. It won't last."

Basira said nothing. She didn't lower the gun. She didn't breathe.

Daisy shifted, and the glance tossed over her shoulder glittered, eyeshine in the moonlit dark. " _Do_ it, Basira," Daisy growled.

Basira took a deep breath. She wasn't in the habit of trusting her own judgment anymore. She didn't know if she'd ever get that back, or if she'd just have to learn to live with it. But what she _did_ know was that she had a few tried and true methods at her disposal already. What she did know was that if she pulled the trigger right now, she didn't think she'd be able to care if the world ended, after that.

"No," Basira said, and she lowered the gun.

Daisy turned, then, and simple, urgent instinct told Basira to move. To put distance between them and then pick up the gun again, because that was what you did when confronted with a threat. But she knew that if she conceded ground, if she started a fight, she'd lose. No matter who pulled the trigger or pulled a knife. No matter what, she'd lose.

Basira made herself stare unblinkingly into Daisy's face instead, as Daisy breathed hard and glared across the pavement, her eyes unnatural and reflective. There was a knife in her belt, stained brown too. The only light came from the moon, but there was something off about Daisy's face, something that Basira didn't allow herself to split her attention with yet. She kept her focus on Daisy as a whole, and she did not move.

"Basira," Daisy choked out, somewhere between pleading and fury. " _Please._ I can't-- I _won't_ hurt you."

"Yeah," Basira said, and yet she couldn't stop the quiver of nerves as she methodically and slowly unloaded the gun and tossed cartridge and weapon aside. "You won't, because I think I know how to play this game. I'm not running, and I'm not trying to kill you, so there's no hunt in it." She remained where she was, rooted like a tree, and Daisy didn't move either, except for the way she shuddered. "And I think you can figure out how to listen, for a few minutes."

It didn't feel right, to just stand here and ostensibly do nothing, when Daisy strained to hold herself back so much that every part of her trembled. But Basira knew that it would work, because it had worked before: standing aside and doing nothing, every time she'd let Daisy go off to murder another supposed _monster_. And here she was, asking for the same thing again, counting on what she knew was tried and true. It was sick, and it wasn't right, but that was how these things worked, and Basira would _make_ it work one last time, for the world. For Daisy.

"Basira," Daisy said again, like she knew the effect it had, Basira's name in her lilting half-growl. "I don't want... I don't want to be who I was, and it's not..." Her lips curled back in a snarl, dripping with hunger and despair. "It's not going to _end_."

"I know," Basira said, her voice a little softer. Maybe there was a way to cut Daisy off from the Hunt without killing her, but it wouldn't be the removal of one's eyes, and there was simply no time left to figure out another way. "I'm sorry. If we make it, then maybe one day we can figure out how to free you, but until then... what do you think it's going to solve, Daisy?"

Her voice hardened, echoed in the moonlight and the silence, the only sound left in the trees. Jon had once accused her of not being willing to talk, so she was going to talk her lungs out and hope like hell that something stuck. There were so many things that she wanted to say, and yet she hadn't been able to settle on any of them, whenever she'd been able to bring herself to think about it at all. So why not say everything that came to mind? She didn't know how much of it was _Eye_ or _Hunt_ or just her, but it would have to do.

"If I kill you," Basira said, keeping her voice hard, commanding, "is it going to fix anything for all of the people we hurt? Is it going to fix anything at all? Or is it just that _you_ won't have to worry about it anymore?"

Daisy's gleaming eyes flashed, and her feet shuffled like a bull about to charge, but Basira didn't flinch, didn't give ground. It went against her every survival instinct, her overwhelming need to _do_ something, but she stayed still. She did nothing.

"Because _I'd_ have to live with it," Basira continued. "And you know what? I don't want to. And I think you know that, and that's why you've been skulking around hiding from me. But now that I'm here, you're willing to let me pull the trigger if it means that it absolves you or _whatever_ , and guess what? It doesn't. It doesn't do anything to _help_ , Daisy."

A few steps carried Daisy forward, abrupt and swift, and Basira nearly took a step back. She caught herself, just in time, and Daisy stopped as if held in place, muscles straining, almost close enough to touch. She gestured to the bloody knife in her belt. "What does this _help_?" she spat out, her eyes too wide. This close, it was easier to see what was off about her. Daisy's face was drawn, gaunt. Like she was starving again, slowly and inexorably.

"Jon needs you," Basira said, her heart beating too fast even through her stillness, and a huff of a near-delirious laugh followed. "God, you don't even know the half of it. How much things are poised to go to shit right now. But how do you think he'd feel if I came back and told him that I'd murdered you? How do you think _I'd_ feel? I--" Her voice cracked then. She had to stop and swallow and try again. " _I_ need you. I thought I knew what I was doing, I thought I could just _figure it out_ if I tried hard enough, and I... I didn't stop anything or fix anything or _do_ anything worth a damn. I just made things worse, and I let you down while I was at it."

Her breath quivered. These days, she thought she'd do anything to take it back, to go back so that she didn't leave Daisy feeling like the only thing she'd valued about her was the Hunt. Now she didn't even have the luxury of proving it beyond the shadow of a doubt.

"And I know," Basira continued, "I _know_ it isn't fair. I know you just want to help without the Hunt. But things have gone so wrong, Daisy, and either you can die and leave us to deal with it by ourselves," and something flickered in Daisy's eyes, then, or else Basira just desperately hoped for it, "or you can live long enough to do something about it."

Daisy moved again, and Basira put all of her strength and willpower into not moving with her, into keeping every muscle locked down tight. Even when Daisy's face was right in front of hers, even when the knife was in Daisy's hand and all too close to Basira's skin, even when Daisy's other hand locked around Basira's wrist.

But if there was a test involved, a boundary of the Hunt that needed to remain fixed in place, Basira cleared it, utterly motionless. Daisy went still in turn, and her eerie eyes drifted to a point past Basira's shoulder, as she shuddered again, this time with something deeper. This close, brushing up against each other, Basira could feel the hollow parts of Daisy, gaunt lines that ran deeper than her face.

"Don't know if I can control it," Daisy muttered, with concentrated effort, which wasn't quite a rejection of the premise.

"Yeah?" Basira said, emboldened, and she shifted only a little, to better face Daisy. The hand was still locked around her wrist, the knife too close at her other side, but it didn't bother her, all of a sudden. A sense of control began to assert itself, a sense of where to guide the situation. Like her words bent the shape of reality around her. "For starters, it's worse here, I think, since the Hunt's come to visit. And you're hungry. You only killed one of them, didn't you?"

Daisy's strange eyes flashed with something distant. "The woman," she said. "Don't know where that... that Not thing went, but I let the old man get away. Don't know if..." she let out a shaky breath, mouth twisting in a flash of a grimace, a snarl, "if I was trying to have fun, or trying to... to die and not, not take any more blood and get him to kill me, but... he's still around. Hunting me."

"Not much of a tracker, is he?" Basira said, her eyes tracing the lean lines of Daisy's face, close enough to touch. "Took me a few minutes at most, once I was here."

Daisy's breath tickled against her shoulder, in something that was almost a laugh. "He's not you," she said, because she'd wanted to be found as much as she'd wanted to hide, Basira knew, and there was only one person she trusted to do it.

Basira was playing a delicate game with that trust. She just hoped that it was worth it.

Something echoed behind her, somewhere beyond the trees. A cry, faint but familiar enough that Basira's stomach dropped. Daisy heard it too, her eyes hungrily seeking out the source, but there were still a few more things that needed saying, before Basira was comfortable letting her go. Hopefully it would be enough for Daisy to hold on to.

"I'm sorry," Basira said softly. "All the times I didn't stop you, even when I knew something was _off_. The way I acted after... you were worse than dead, and I could barely handle that, and then you came back, and I... wanted to feel like things made sense again, and they didn't. But that wasn't your fault. It was mine. I made it your problem, and it wasn't."

She brought her free hand up, to the back of Daisy's neck. Daisy shuddered in her hold, and the sense of it shivered down Basira's spine.

"So please know that I am not asking this because the old Daisy made things make sense," Basira said, and carefully, slowly, she pulled them together and leaned her forehead against the side of Daisy's head. "I am asking this because I want to do something _good_. And I think you want that too."

Daisy huffed, teary, snarling. "Yeah."

Basira took a moment to steady herself, as the trembling sound of Daisy's voice lanced through her. "But there is no way that we get through this by playing fair," she said. She wasn't a fool. There wasn't anything good about this. She'd known that before, too: that Melanie's anger and Jon's sight would only hurt them and the people around them. She'd used it anyway, because she'd convinced herself that it didn't matter. It did matter, but now they were backed into a corner far too tight. "It doesn't work like that."

There wasn't anything good about this, but she knew for a goddamn fact that these things could be _redirected_.

"We play as dirty as they do," Basira continued, "and maybe that still puts us on borrowed time and eats away at what's left of our souls, but we do not just give up and roll over and die. Not if we still have a chance. Not if we can do something to stop all of this bullshit. Understand?"

Daisy's head dropped away from her, forehead pressing into Basira's shoulder, into her braids, tension unraveling. She nodded, her breathing a little steadier.

"And I promise, I will stop you if it gets out of hand," Basira said, and she hated herself for it, just a bit. She wanted to lead Daisy far away somewhere, wanted to hunt for information until she figured out how to sever a Hunt connection without killing the person to whom it had latched. The possibility was so very tempting, a dangling piece of fresh meat. But Basira wasn't quite ready to walk away from it all just yet, and honestly? She didn't even know if they would really be able to, in the end. "Until then: we find Herbert, and we kill him, before he hurts Jon or Martin or anyone else." The whisper of gaunt hunger lines in Daisy's face and form would retreat, too, and Basira would be able to rest a little easier then. As selfish as it was altruistic, and she held no illusions anymore, about that. "How's that sound?"

A low sound of affirmation came from Daisy's throat, shuddering into Basira's shoulder and tingling down her back.

With effort, Basira pulled away, tugging her wrist out of Daisy's hand and stepping to the side. Daisy straightened with knife in hand, and her glinting eyes studied Basira, unreadable, before they turned to roam the road and the trees.

Basira slid the shotgun off of her shoulder and handed it to Daisy, and she took a moment to retrieve her discarded handgun and reload it, before pointing back the way she had come. "Then let's go get him."

* * *

The thing about this whole compelling business was that you needed to concentrate to maintain it, which Martin discovered when his head cleared of enough shock and ache to think, and his eyes darted first to the knife still in Trevor's hands, then to the fire poker lying a few meters away. The stream of words faltered, and Martin's throat closed around a rush of fear, so he stopped his sidling away and brought his attention back to bear on the Hunter.

Trevor stood rigid, speaking, and his eyes glowered in the moonlit dark, full of an unnatural sheen and a hatred that would most definitely see Martin dead, the second the spell broke.

Martin hadn't put enough thought into this. He really hadn't, and it was so hard to think of anything else, when his head and stomach ached, when he absorbed every word that left Trevor's mouth.

"And it was over, just like that," Trevor said, his voice trembling with rage, with sorrow. Martin felt it too, stabbing and invasive, and part of him wanted to recoil from what Trevor had just described: how quickly and tauntingly Daisy had killed Julia. How much it had _hurt_ to watch. Grief and horror and the blood-pumping roar of chase and flight, tangled together into a thread that wound into Martin too, sharp like salt on the edges of his own tongue, somewhere between appetizing and horrific. "I had to run. Had to leave her there, because if I was got, there'd be no one left to avenge her. So I did. I ran. And that fucking demon _let_ me. She wanted to see me limp away. Hounded me for days, afterward. Everywhere I went, she'd turn up eventually, and then she'd never quite finish the job. But she gave up eventually, and--"

Trevor moved, bit by bit, turning slowly and following Martin's movements. The hold that the statement had on him wasn't strong enough, and Martin's eyes kept flicking to the knife. It wasn't worth the risk, getting close enough to wrench it away from him. Not when Martin could barely keep his focus intact. The poker would have to do, even though Martin wasn't sure what he was _supposed_ to do with it. Kill Trevor? Knock him out? Martin was pretty sure that sending someone into unconsciousness was harder than it looked.

"--I could find her if I just--" Trevor took a deep breath and took a step towards Martin, the knife shifting in his hands, his eyes practically gleaming in the dark.

Martin took a step back, and his voice only remained steady through the ministrations of something that was not him. " _Keep talking._ "

"--if I just kept at it," Trevor said, footsteps grinding to a halt, eyes growing a spark more murderous. "And I did. Tracked her out near Cheltenham and then west of that, and got damn close, too, more than a few times. But she was slippery, and I--"

Martin hadn't thought this through. He hadn't been _thinking_ at all, and panic and adrenaline had kicked in, and he didn't understand how this had even _happened_. For Christ's sake, he didn't even know how to use it. He was just guessing, flying blind on instinct, and as soon as the statement broke or wound to an end, Trevor was going to kill him or maim him or something awful and painful, and it wouldn't do a thing to protect Jon.

Martin glanced sideways at the fire poker, almost close enough to reach. Trevor faltered again. Martin straightened and made eye contact with him.

"Then we ended up _here_ ," Trevor said, something dark and anticipatory in his tone, and with a jolt, Martin realized how little time he had left. "Don't know how. Was nearly three hundred kilometers away, before. But that's just fine, because _she's_ here, and I'm going to kill her and the Archivist and you too," his voice took a sharp turn into anguish, and Martin's stomach twisted with an unnatural thread of shared grief, "because it's not _right,_ outliving Julia, and I'm going to make it _hurt._ "

The thread snapped. Trevor lunged.

Martin threw himself at the fire poker, invigorated and trembling both, and the world blurred. The pavement was dark and glittering in the moonlight, and it scraped against him as he got low, and giving up the advantage of height sent a fresh jolt of terror and fury coursing through him. But he spun with poker in hand, and this time, he didn't try to swing. He had the sharp end held ready, and enough strength in his oddly galvanized limbs to hold it steady, and gravity and Trevor's own bloodthirsty momentum carried him straight into it.

The poker impaled Trevor through the stomach, sickening in how it slid in, and Martin blinked up from his position on the ground, numb shock turning the steadiness of his limbs to immobile ice, not quite enough to numb out how his head suddenly _ached_.

Trevor blinked in surprise, then wrenched himself back, and the sound made Martin want to gag around a swoop of aching nausea. There was just enough light to see the deeper darkness coating the edge of the poker, and Trevor stumbled back a few steps, staring down at the wound.

Then Trevor looked up, and his teeth pulled back into a pained, amused grimace as he straightened. "I don't go down that easy, boy."

Of course not. Because he was _a fucking avatar_.

Martin took a shuddering breath, as Trevor steadied the knife in his grip and took a step. It was going to come down to a fight, and he tried to reach for that earlier tingling realization once more, even as he readied the poker, and--

\--Trevor crumpled, with a horrid spray of blood from his head and a bang so loud that Martin felt it in his throat.

Martin stared. Bits of blood and brain matter had landed on him, sickening and wet, and Trevor lay unmoving against the pavement, and the poker trembled rigid in Martin's hands. He kept staring, listening to the whine between his ears, until something wrenched the poker away, and he registered the sound of a voice.

"Hey," it said, and fingers snapped in front of his face. "Hey! Look at me."

Martin did so, and Basira's frowning face became apparent in his view. She was crouched down next to him. She looked... okay. Good.

"You hurt?" she asked, laying the poker aside.

Breath exploded out of Martin in a rush, and he answered without really thinking about it, grasping at any words that came to mind. "I don't-- I don't think so? I--"

He stopped when Basira reached a hand out to ghost it over the side of his head, tilting her own to get a better look. Her frown deepened. "Any headache? Ringing? Nausea?"

"Um," Martin said, because the side of his head ached like a gigantic bruise had been painted onto it, and he only just noticed again with a lurching of his stomach, and oh, _god_ , what had just happened? "Now that you mention it..." His eyes drifted back to Trevor, as if to convince himself that it had been real, and he saw another figure standing above the body, shotgun in hand. His eyes widened in a double take. " _Daisy?_ "

She didn't answer. She was disheveled and looming, and she scowled down at Trevor's body, then turned her gaze out towards the trees and the moors. It was like she hadn't even heard him, and there was something in her eyes that made Martin want to recoil.

"Martin," Basira said, and Martin returned his attention to her, hazily. "Look, might be you've got a concussion. Stay here, lay low, we'll--"

Everything else came back to Martin with another jolt, one that made his vision tilt. "No, no, Jon," he said, panicky, as he stumbled up to his feet, because a sweeping glance at the car park told him that Jon was nowhere to be found, and Martin nearly tripped over his sudden spike of fear. Something was wrong. He knew that, all too certain. "Where is he? Was he with you? Where--"

"I don't know." Basira cut him off brusquely, rising with him, but her hands were light as she steadied him. "We'll find him. But you're hurt, and you're basically a civilian, so--"

She just didn't get it. Martin knew that maybe he was frantic and not thinking straight, and his head throbbed and his stomach ached, but Jon _needed_ him, he could _feel_ it, and he was not just going to sit back and twiddle his thumbs. "I took a statement from Trevor!" he said hotly.

Silence fell across the car park, broken by the stirring of wind through pine needles and dying leaves. That got Daisy's attention, and her unsettling gaze shifted to Martin and locked there, piercing even through the gloom. He shuddered, though he didn't know why.

Basira looked like she would rather not have been caught completely off-guard by that. Her eyes were wide, until she forcibly schooled her face into something calmer. The clipped question came narrowly between her teeth. "What?"

"I compelled one right out of him," Martin said, and he tried to take measured breaths, even though his heart was pounding alongside his head, and his stomach was turning over on itself. Freak out later, he reminded himself. Act now. "I don't-- I don't know how, okay? But that is _not_ a civilian thing, and we need to find Jon. Now."

"We do," Daisy agreed, two curt syllables that nevertheless rang long and decisive across the car park. Her eyes flicked back to the woods, searching, a pressure gauge released somewhere between Martin's shoulders as the hungry gaze moved on.

Basira hissed out in frustration. "Fine," she snapped, and it was her turn to fix Martin with a stare that made him want to take several steps back. "But you do everything I say. Got it?"

Martin nodded and regretted the motion, wincing, and Basira spend a single moment longer looking aggrieved with the state of things, before she made a silent motion towards Daisy.

Daisy sprang into action, shotgun held deceptively loose and ready, purposeful steps setting a hard pace towards the path. Basira motioned for Martin to follow Daisy, leaving him effectively sandwiched between them.

Martin took note of the annoyed look that Basira was still leveling at him and decided that it was probably safest to do as he was told this time, as he slipped into place behind Daisy and kept a pace that wasn't fast enough, when compared to the urgent ringing of worry of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Stranger-typical and NotThem-typical everything, Hunt-typical violence.
> 
> Hardest thing about this fic is arranging the setting so that there's a literal representation of some kind of door-gate-thing in every entity confrontation.
> 
> Also: I recently made a TMA side blog on Tumblr, and it's [@entityjon](https://entityjon.tumblr.com/) if ya want. (The url alone should tell you everything about me.)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

In the moments between air being driven out of his lungs by pain and his throat being seized by an alien presence to draw in another lungful, there was space, and in that space, he didn't know who he was. He didn't know what he was. He was content with that, in an odd way. He didn't feel anything anymore, though a distant sense of pain remained. Like it was only a passing curiosity, soon to fade.

He didn't want to feel that again. He didn't want to be what he was. It lead to nothing good. He knew that.

 _Do you want to quit?_ a voice asked, surfacing from his thoughts as if drawn up by the realization.

 _No,_ another voice said. Not the one trying to make a home in his throat, though not quite separate from it, either. Warmer, more alive, more human than the empty cold of the other. It stirred something within him, a dull ache, and he wanted to pull away from it. But he couldn't. Something held him fast, a shadow at his back. _I'm just... I'm just too damned curious, I suppose. You?_

 _No,_ the other voice said. _Whatever's going on, I need to know._

Another voice flitted across his thoughts, harder, grave. It made him want to snap to attention. _You will also be unable to relinquish the position or quit the Institute, finding you are supernaturally compelled to remain._

He knew that too. The voices remained in his thoughts, a persistent scratch of familiarity that he couldn't shake, couldn't duck away from. It occurred to him, another realization pulled forth from the depths of not knowing who and what he was, that the first voice was his.

He wanted to muffle it. Wanted to tell it to shut up. Nothing good had ever come of it. Something blocked it, too, a line of bloody fire, a pain that he did not want to feel again.

 _It's just a scratch, Jon,_ the second voice said. _I'll be fine. Can we begin?_

 _Okay,_ the first voice, his own voice, said. _Statement of Sasha James, assistant archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding..._

It jolted through him, lightning realization on top of lightning realization, bringing the distant sense of pain jarringly closer with each one. Jon. That was his name. The first voice was his, and his name was Jon, and... Sasha. He'd been talking to Sasha, the second voice, and she was... she was...

 _You have been chosen to be my replacement as Head Archivist,_ the third voice said. _Hopefully, this means you, Sasha, but if someone else is hearing this, and Elias has made a different choice for some reason, then these words are still very much intended for you._

No. No, no, no. Jon didn't want that.

 _The first thing you have to do is accept that you are in great danger and will be for the rest of your life,_ the third voice said-- Gertrude said. Her name came to him with another jolt, and the line of fire at his throat burned, as the very last of his breath scraped out of it, as lungs that were his and not his began to contract.

Danger. There was danger, and the hand that wasn't his, that was his, grasped at something. It was locked. He had to break it.

He couldn't let that happen.

 _There is another part of being the Archivist,_ Gertrude said. _These beings, these gods of fear... their followers believe that they have... rituals. Grand projects which, if successful, would allow them to enter our world, reshaping it in unthinkable ways. Molding it into a dimension where terror is as natural as gravity. You are now one such ritual._

He knew that. His voice, his lungs, his fingers, his body, moving under the influence of something else, speaking terrible things into existence, aborted only because of...

 _We have to try,_ Martin said.

 _There's nothing we can do,_ Jon said.

 _Ah,_ Sasha said, _screw this._

Jon's throat ached with something else, something besides the air now rushing down to fill his lungs again. It hurt with a terrible, squeezing _grief_ , because it had been the last time he'd seen her, and he couldn't even remember the correct face to put to it. It was his fault. If he'd tried harder to keep them safe, if he hadn't taken the damn job...

 _If it is you I’m talking to, Sasha,_ Gertrude said, _hopefully your background in Artefact Storage will lend a certain degree of... credence to my words. But others may have to take it on trust._

 _What?_ Jon asked. _Sasha, no!_

No. No. Gertrude had wanted Sasha, and if Sasha had taken it...

 _They do not rule our world, but they do exercise considerable power,_ Gertrude said, _which they generally manifest in the form of monstrous beings that spread further fear... or, incarnations, those humans who have willingly, though not always knowingly, chosen to take on the power of these entities. You, unfortunately, have unwittingly made the decision to become one of those incarnations._

She would have been trapped, dancing to a tune she couldn't hear. He couldn't remember her face, her real face, but his mind hazily superimposed images onto the blank void of memory anyway. He saw Sasha with her throat slashed, with her skin layered in burns and holes, and he wanted to retch on the air pouring down into his lungs.

_For the Institute serves a being variously known as: the Eye, It Knows You, the Beholding, the Ceaseless Watcher._

It wasn't often, that all parts of Jon _yearned,_ clearly and without guilt, for that other thing now so indelibly a part of him that he couldn't begin to identify where he ended and it began. But something else, something hateful was invading him down to the atom, and he felt the Eye's distance now like an ache, and yet it wasn't gone. It was at his back always, and it held him fast and kept him from sinking further into the depths of not knowing who or what he was. It was his, hungry, always hungry, there for the reaching and the taking, and it was... it was... it wasn't quite right?

_Above all else: be ready. There are many things out there loyal to other powers which know your importance to the Eye and will want you dead._

No. If he died...

_On the subject of Elias: trust nothing he says. He was originally known as Jonah Magnus, the founder of this Institute, and I have known him also as James Wright, the previous head of this Institute._

No. If he died, it would be taking Magnus out with him.

 _You are entering a new world,_ Gertrude said, and somehow, he had never been able to imagine her speaking with the concern and weariness he heard now. It was almost soft. In that moment, Jon wished that he could have known her. He realized, distant, that it had only ever been the Stranger that had convinced him that she would have hated him. The Stranger was... it was trying to use _his_ voice now, and he could not let that happen. _A place I've lived for most of my life. A place... a place that will often demand a high price from you. Pay it without hesitation, because one way or another, the world is now on your shoulders._

Jon didn't want to be who and what he was. It lead to nothing good, and there was comfort in the idea of letting it go. No more Jon. No more Archivist, except...

 _And then he finds someone else to mark up,_ Martin said, _and the world ends._

No.

 _Pay it without hesitation,_ Gertrude said, and Jon would, if it meant that this _stopped._ That no one, not Gertrude, not Sasha, not Jon, walked this path again.

Jon's lungs were almost full enough to speak, and his throat burned. He wanted to shy away from it, because he was so, so tired of being in pain, but nothing good would happen, if he let another speak with the Archivist's voice.

And so he let the sense of his aching throat warp back into him, stinging and raw and bleeding. The body was that his and not his shuddered. The hand working at the latch to the gate convulsed around the cool metal.

His other hand hurt too, and Jon leaned into it, let the scrape of it fill him up, and he wanted to writhe away from the fire wrapped around his hand, but he didn't. It didn't have to be an awful kind of hurt, didn't have to mean being taken advantage of by things stronger than him, with no way out except through. Because it was raw again, and it simply meant that Martin had saved him, and Jon could not, _would not_ leave him to face this alone.

Jon blinked, an action more his own than another's, and his eyes itched with strain and darkness at the corners. His arms and his face and his sides and his legs itched too, a squeamish sensation of tiny phantom teeth, and his shoulders ached with things sharp and violent. He let each sensation rock through him, awful and powerful, and his ribs buckled, and his lungs convulsed around the words that the other tried hastily to speak, air once again crushed out of him by gravity and the lack of it.

The other knew that it had made a mistake. It tried to flee, something within him warping and twisting and writhing like the worms.

 _I don't think so,_ Jon thought, his voice not quite his own yet, and the air around him was so very cold, and there were hands on him and strings that he could not see, leading to places not yet visible. There was something dark and pulsing out beyond reach, and another voice, _it keeps looking at you,_ but the thing was, Jon could look back. He, and the Eye, had looked _first_ , and to see and to know was _his_ domain, and the thing writhing within him _hated_ that.

 _I am the Archivist,_ Jon thought, and something clicked at the base of his skull, like the blinking of the great shadow at his back, final and shivering with change, _and this ends with **me**._

He blinked. He breathed. It hurt, all of it, but Jon felt it like it was his own. He felt his back shuddering against the gate and his hand wrapped around the lock, and the thing in him writhed and shrieked silently, angry wailing rattling beneath Jon's skull. He saw things that were not the path and the woods and the moonlight and the moors, and he felt something else all around, still present, still searching, like and not like the Eye. It would help him. It was strong and uniquely suited against the others. Against... itself?

"Thank you," Jon said, and his words weren't so rough, so raw, his throat not quite so bloody, his wound no longer intensifying so steadily, "for giving me a voice." The words hummed like twin strings plucked, a static drone of overlap, and his body felt strange, even though it belonged to him again. Like something moved beneath the surface of his skin, frantically seeking exit. "You wanted an Archivist? Well... congratulations."

The thing in him screamed its fury and its fear, but its throat no longer belonged to it, and Jon drank its terror in.

"You shouldn't have used the Hunt to find me," Jon said, and disdain found its way out through the cracks between the two voices with which he spoke. "You've left yourself vulnerable, and I can _see_ your weaknesses. I can see past you into your master, and you," he let out something that was almost a laugh, dark, delirious, angry, "are going to regret taking my friend."

He laid eyes on the tape recorder he'd dropped, and blood pounded in his ears, all around him, hungry and seeking. "I think," Jon said, pushing off the gate and taking a step forward, "I'm going to do the same to you. I'm going to _eat_ you."

Jon scooped up the tape recorder and straightened, his eyes on the woods, which now stretched in all directions with no paths or markers. The thing kept screaming and writhing, a map of pressure underneath the veneer of his own skin, of his mind. His fingers flickered, when he looked at them, afterimages trailing at the edges like something else hid beneath.

He didn't care. It would be gone soon.

Jon clicked record.

"Statement of Jonathan Sims," he said, and his voice trembled with a static convergence, and the blood rushed in his ears, beginning to drown it out, "the Archivist, regarding... the Stranger. Statement begins."

The moonlight glittered, painting the woods in bright shadows. There was no path anymore, no way of knowing where to go, where home was, where the others were. Only ranks upon ranks of dark trees, so uniform as to be unsettling and difficult to see into. The unknown, yawning, beckoning. It was a place to lose oneself in, now, molding to the presence of something else. A place to forget one's name, to get lost so thoroughly that not even the outside world remembered.

It wasn't so different from a cold, empty world. It wasn't so different. That was important, and Jon latched on to the thought, tucked it away for later.

"I have," Jon began, slowly, coldly, "so many reasons to _hate_ you. Out of all of you... you killed Sasha, you killed Tim, you held me captive, killed me."

He spoke, and he walked, into the unknown. Each tree the same as the others as he passed, each shadow meant to obscure. But he didn't care, because he could see, and he could track, and slowly, underbrush began to give way to grass.

"I _hate_ you," Jon said, and the thing within him could only shrink, only wail, silent and thrashing. "More than I have hated most anything in my life. You, who hides in the peripheral and thrives in faceless torment." The grass grew shorter, as if shaved down by the words. The burgeoning roots and the underbrush continued to pull back, and now they aligned on either side of his feet, laying themselves out. He saw patterns, out among the uniform trees. The shape of this place, beginning to form, there for the seeing. "You, who steals lives and destroys the ones left behind."

The thing within him and the thing around him recoiled, as he walked, as he spoke, as the blood pounded louder and louder.

"I hate you," Jon said, "and you hate me in turn, but it is not the same feeling reflecting back." Knowing came, impressions that he could not yet make sense of, but he absorbed them nonetheless, and they resonated alongside everything else in his twofold voice. "For you, it is simply reflex, because you are I Do Not Know You," his teeth bared like a snarl, "but I see you and _know_ you, and I know how much that hurts all of you, but _especially_ you."

The air around him shuddered, pressure warping and popping his eardrums. It was trying to repel him, trying to throw him off, but the thing that was not Sasha was still within him, and as long as it was, he had a window into what lay beyond it. He walked and refracted the terrible gaze at his back, in whatever direction he wished, and he spoke and reflected the contours of the Stranger back at itself with the vibrations of its own voice interwoven with his. And the blood still howled in his ears, showing him every weak link in this place that he passed, and refraction and reflection bore down upon each with immense force.

"Do you want to experience it?" Jon asked. "What it's like to _know?_ You've had a taste of it already, haven't you?"

The path at his feet continued to grow, roots aligning either side and indentations marking themselves into the grass, like feet had walked it before. But his ears hurt. His eyes hurt. Everything in him hurt, even with the strange energy flooding through him with every word, and he knew that he couldn't keep this up. That no matter how far and hard he looked, he couldn't continue to _see_ without something breaking within him.

"Feel it, then," Jon said, the overlay of his voice deepening. The air groaned under the weight of its own reflection, and the thing within him began to come apart at the seams, tearing at him from beneath the surface of his skin. But he didn't let himself falter. "Everything that I know, that the Eye knows. Everything that you have done, all that you have inflicted on others, all that you _are_."

He followed a definite path now, and he knew that it would lead him out of the unknown. Just a few more steps. A few more moments of drinking in every scrap of information he could about the thing around him, even though what lodged beneath his skull could not yet be broken down into parts understandable.

"I _see_ you," Jon spat out, final and ringing, when the pain behind his eyes was too much and the clawing underneath his skin threatened to pull him apart with it, "and you see me in turn, and it is _terrible_."

The thing that was not Sasha dissipated with a noiseless, glass-shattering wail that ricocheted within Jon's mind, and every inch of Jon's skin shuddered with alien pressure and a crawling sensation like the prickle of static. His vision went black, and his inner ear throbbed and lurched, and when he could see again, he was on his hands and knees in the woods.

The path he'd used to get to the trail was beneath his feet, and the trees were normal, like he remembered, scattered pines drenched in moonlight. Almost normal, anyway, because something else was still here. Still rushing in his ears, though it was less of a roar and more of a murmur. Jon straightened enough to take the pressure off of his hands, and he winced and swallowed at the hideous ache beneath the bandages. His throat twinged too, and when he set the tape recorder aside to lift undamaged hand to it, his fingers still came away coated in blood.

He felt... strange. Strong, and yet brittle like soft crystal. Full, and yet full of an aching hollow somewhere within him that was not yet sated. Tired, and yet brimming with energy still coursing under his skin like a living thing, even in the absence of Not Sasha.

After a moment, Jon picked up the tape recorder again and said a hoarse, "Statement ends," with another flick of the record button. His voice was singular and entirely his own, back to its raw and strident rasp, hampered by the blood at his throat.

The tape felt strange too, after he popped it out, shaped and warped in a way that could not have possibly fit into the recorder. Like its dimensions had become a flipped, chiral image of the other tapes. Jon weighed the tape in his hand, studying it like it was difficult to look away, before he pocketed it in his coat and wrapped his undamaged fingers around the recorder once more.

He pushed himself to his feet, as light and easy as he was weighed down and slow, and he studied the woods again, eyeing the path that would take him back to the car park.

He wasn't done. Not yet, not while he still bled.

So Jon left the path and walked into the woods.

* * *

He came upon a visitor center presently, which wasn't quite right. Jon didn't know how long he had been walking for, but it hadn't been very long, and the trees, though not as uniform and unending as the unknown, did not thin out any further. He and Martin and Basira had poured over maps of the area, and Jon was fairly certain that there was no visitor center near this section of the trail. But there it stood, nestled within the trees, and Jon came to a stop in the paved forecourt and stared.

Something about the visitor center was... off. It had a wide oak door layered from top to bottom with tinted glass, black in the nighttime and impossible to see into. Jon didn't think anyone was in there. He didn't dare call for help anyway. He wasn't lost, exactly, and neither was he afraid. He was looking for something, and he was close, he thought. He just had to find it, except that it wasn't here.

It found him instead.

The next few things happened in such quick succession, with such blood pounding in his ears, that Jon was only able to really grasp them through the gaze of the Eye. He heard voices behind him, abrupt and arcing in pitch like a radio had just been turned on, and his insides lurched with relief, with longing, when he recognized Martin's worried tone.

Jon turned. The voices surged in volume, alarmed, and something collided with him, a blur of motion and growling. His back slammed into the visitor center door, and had he not been what he was, the force of it might have cracked his head open. The glass fractured, and he didn't need to see it to _see_ the cracks like spiderwebs radiating outward from where his back had made impact.

He sensed more than heard Martin's panicked cry of " _No!_ " and Basira holding him back with words that Jon couldn't hear, before she was suddenly in Jon's peripheral sight, gun up and steady.

But Jon's vision was full of Daisy, her face twisted in a snarl, her eyes and pupils blown wide, her hands clenched with unbreakable strength where she had him pinned against the door. Her eyes were fixed on his neck. She could have done anything to him in that moment while Jon's head spun, but her limbs and her gaze grew rigid, shuddering into stillness. A muscle in her jaw twitched madly, from the sheer effort of holding herself back.

And Jon _knew_ , with terrible certainty, that he had been _wrong_.

"Daisy," Basira said, low and iron, at Jon's right. "Let him go."

Something passed across Daisy's face, a twist of anguish, and her fingers dug into Jon's shoulders, into the scars visible and invisible there, the only movement that broke her taut immobility. It hurt.

"Daisy," Basira said again, and the tremor that ran through it was nearly imperceptible. "I don't want to shoot you."

Daisy's face flickered again, her expression buckling into something past a snarl. Her head dipped, like the snapping of a single thread cut by Basira's voice, like Daisy was trying to look anywhere but Jon.

"Jon," Daisy ground out between her bared teeth, strained and trembling. "It wants... it wants..."

"I know," Jon said softly. He'd been so wrong, he thought, numb, achingly aware of the cracks at his back. Making assumptions without understanding, without hard facts to back it up. Assigning intention where there was none, or at least none that he could understand. Guessing. Always guessing. How many times was the world going to come to the brink because of that? "Basira..." he managed, around the ache of his throat and the blood dripping down his neck. "Don't... don't interfere."

In the corner of his eye, Basira didn't lower the gun or relax, but something in his voice must have convinced her, because she nodded once.

"It's alright, Martin," Jon croaked. He could just see Martin beyond Daisy, could feel the roiling, inviting fear and indecision coming off of Martin. It couldn't have been more than an hour or so since they'd been separated, but it felt like an age, and Jon wanted to reach out to Martin, to feel his warmth again. But he couldn't. Daisy needed him, and the Hunt had to be dealt with.

As Jon spoke, Daisy painstakingly loosened her grip, centimeter by centimeter, like it took every bit of willpower she had to peel back her bruising hold on his shoulders. "Jon," she muttered, still looking anywhere but him. "Run. G-Go, now."

It gave Jon just enough leeway to shift his left arm and the tape recorder in his hand. "No need for that," he whispered, and he supposed it didn't sound very reassuring, with the way his voice cracked and rasped. "You can't... hunt something," Jon took a painful breath and let his head drop back against the door, reaching out to the energy still buzzing faintly beneath his skin, "... that you can't..." his voice shifted, changed, grew stronger, took on that echoing, overlapping cadence from earlier, static that was familiar and unfamiliar both, " _identify_."

Daisy's fingers uncurled, and she took a stumbling step back, her wide eyes blinking rapidly. "What the hell...?" 

The air around Jon coiled restlessly, seeking but not finding. He was aware of Basira's frown, of Martin's gaping alarm, and he leaned back against the door for a moment longer and listened to the whispers around him. To the blood still pounding in his ears, a little more muffled now. It echoed with the hatred from earlier, promising to act on it. They could do so much more than kill a single creature of the Stranger. That was what the Hunt did -- turned on the others, sniffed out their weakness and division, elevated the simple and mindless dance of predator and prey to a higher order thrill.

Jon let his eyes slide closed. He wanted to do that, very much so.

But not like this.

For the second time that day, he clicked record and opened his eyes and _looked_.

"Statement of," and he had to fight for the next few words, with his voice layered over on itself, with his voice not itself, keeping the Hunt from finding its way into him, "Jonathan Sims, the... the Archivist, regarding... the Hunt. Statement begins."

A low warning growl came from Daisy's throat. She was looking directly at Jon again, eyes gleaming with shine, but as long as he held on to the energy still trembling underneath his skin, she wouldn't be able to see him clearly enough to carry out the overwhelming will of the thing that had its claws in her. Jon pushed himself off of the door and took a step forward, and Daisy moved, too, a little out of range, and he knew that it was both instinct to protect herself and to protect him, warring with each other.

"I know what it wants," Jon began. He didn't stop moving. It would help to keep the thin facade of not knowing impenetrable, because it was weak, even now, with the Stranger's presence mostly driven off, with only its echoes lingering in him and in the tape in his coat, with every reverberation of the Eye's knowing working against it.

Jon didn't take his eyes off of Daisy. He circled her, and she circled him, their movements mirrored, and the air of the forecourt between them churned with the restless chase.

"I was wrong," Jon continued, and he didn't let himself look at Martin or Basira, didn't let himself break his concentration. This was trickier. He was not trying to kill, as he had been in the Stranger, and he was not quite trying to find, either, as he had been in the Lonely. He needed to _see_ far enough into the Hunt, in order to understand, to know how to lessen its hold on Daisy, and he needed to make himself as inconvenient as possible, in order to drive it off too. "I assumed that the Hunt would not want to complete a ritual, and I was wrong."

Daisy's eyes glittered in the moonlight, and her footsteps echoed, as did Jon's. The sound echoed, accompanied by fizzling static and the layers of Jon's voice, and the air warped as if reality itself bent around the two of them, listening intently to every step against pavement.

"It is chase," Jon said, "and it is pursuit, and it is tracking, and it is finding, but unlike those it touches, it does not _reason_. A human being knows that all pursuits must come to an end. A human being might arrange their circumstances in order to stave off the inevitable. A fear like this... I'm not sure what it knows or feels, or the extent of circumstances that it might arrange, but... I know, now, that it is beholden to nature above all."

He thought he saw something clear in Daisy's eyes, a parting of gleaming clouds, as if knowing was infecting her too. The night air felt sharper, trembling, and the whispers of blood in Jon's ears rose up in a crescendo. He leaned harder into the energy under his skin, and the whispers fell away.

"And its nature," Jon said, "is becoming. But that doesn't have to be your nature, Daisy."

He reached, carefully, leaning back into welcoming thing behind his eyes and letting knowledge fill his mind, and he meant what he said, in more ways than one. Daisy had enough of the Eye in her. Jon couldn't see far enough, couldn't find the cracks between her and Hunt, into which something could be wedged or cut. But he could call on the Eye in her. He could temper the whispers of blood with the steady gaze of something else, and thus interfere with the influence of both. He could do that, because...

Jon stopped. His blood rushed cold through his limbs, and Daisy's eyes flashed as she faltered too. But Jon sensed more than saw Basira step up near his left, sensed more than saw the gun raised and ready, and Daisy didn't advance.

 _Take control,_ Martin said, like he'd already known, already had some sense of it. _Make the Institute yours, so that..._

 _So that you're tied to me,_ Jon said.

They already were.

Meaning... meaning there was only one thing necessary to free them. The only thing that had ever been necessary.

"It doesn't..." Jon said, without any clear idea of what words he intended to leave his mouth, or what he'd even been speaking about in the first place. The air of the forecourt churned ever more restlessly and hungrily, closing in on him, and the energy within him jumped and grew like sparks building up to a charge, enough to shake him right out of his skin, and--

"Jon?" Martin asked, somewhere at his right.

Jon sucked in a trembling breath, his head clearing just enough to think. Daisy... Daisy wouldn't ever get a chance to be free of the Hunt if he couldn't fend it off right now, and he poured all of his focus into that, and he took another step.

"It doesn't have to be _you_ ," Jon said, and he knew that Daisy was listening, that she was purposefully mirroring his movements now, her eyes somewhere between hungry and pleading. "You don't have to be beholden to that. It's part of you, and I'm sorry. But you are also Daisy. You're... an Archival Assistant," a bitter laugh bubbled up like bile at the back of his sore throat, and he swallowed it down before it could emerge, "and you have terrible taste in your choices of entertainment, and you know what quiet sounds like, and I know you know how to listen for it."

He stopped again, purposeful this time. He extended his free hand, the one wrapped in bandages, and Daisy stopped and gazed down at it.

"But you don't have to do it alone," Jon said. "I can help, if you let me."

Daisy's eyes flicked between his hand and his neck and his face, and her eyes were no longer so eerie, so shining. Her face spasmed with nameless emotion, and she reached out, jerky, hesitant, to lay fingers that struggled to be gentle on top of his.

The blood in Jon's ears roared as soon as she touched him, and he _looked_ , and he _saw_ , through her, deeper and deeper into the Hunt, and he felt the scraping pain of his gaze as if it was his own reflecting back on himself. The air of the forecourt writhed and howled, and he let the almighty gaze at his back refract and reflect and drink it in and envelop Daisy in its shadow too.

"And you," Jon said, to the Hunt, " _piss off._ "

It did so, and the woods and the moonlight were, at last, left blessedly mundane.

Jon pulled his hand away from Daisy and didn't look at her face, or Martin's face, or Basira's. He stepped past, towards the shadow of the visitor center, his eyes on the cracked glass of the door, the whorl of gossamer fissures in the black. Something about it still seemed... wrong. Like it shouldn't be here, as it was. He could just see his reflection within the glass, distorted and indistinct, and the sizzling energy beneath his skin did not abate with the retreat of the Hunt.

"Statement ends," Jon said, hitting record again, and his voice still resonated like it was not quite his own, augmented and strengthened by something else.

They were all already tied to him. Perhaps they always had been. The answer had been so blindingly simple and right in front of his nose, and yet he hadn't _seen_ it. Just like every other answer.

He did not want to be what he was. The thing under his skin whispered now, absorbing the sentiment into itself.

"Jon?" Martin said, somewhere at his back, just visible in the fractured glass.

With painful effort, Jon removed the tape from within the recorder and found it bloodstained at the edges. He stared down at it, his mind and body numb, before placing the recorder into his coat pocket and withdrawing the tape from earlier. The inverted one, which he held in his burned hand despite the sliver of an ache it pressed down upon the bandages. His reflection stood very still in the glass, shot through with cracks, and something whined hollowly, hungrily between his ears.

"Jon," Martin said again, and his voice was suddenly irresistible. "Look at me."

Jon did so, turning away from the cracked door and the visitor center and its wrongness, with a tape in each hand, one inverted and one bloodstained. He found Martin directly behind him, wide-eyed and curls flecked with blood, but calm, hesitant. Jon could just see Daisy and Basira beyond Martin, in the moonlit dark, and he almost couldn't bear to look.

If Jon was dead, Martin would be free of this. Daisy and Basira would be free of this. Melanie and Tim and Sasha could have been free of this. The thought echoed between the walls of Jon's mind, certain and damning.

"Let it go," Martin said softly, reaching out without touching.

Jon did not want to be what he was.

"Hey," Martin said. " _Tell me your name._ "

Jon did not want to be what he was, but the energy under his skin, and the inverted tape in his burned hand, were nothing compared to Martin's voice, nothing compared to the strength of the shadow at Jon's back.

When at last the energy departed, the bleeding and the deepening throb of a growing wound did not return to his throat, though Jon knew, without needing to look, that the scar remained, as sore and reddened as ever. The woods and the moonlight were as empty of fear as they could be, except for what remained in the four of them, in the tapes, in the lingering recesses of reality. If places could be marked, then Jon had done so three times now. Jon slid the tapes back into his coat and took a shuddering breath.

"Jon," he said, and though his voice broke around the name, though it was still ragged and exhausted, it was his own. "Martin, I--"

Martin swept forward and practically scooped him up, and Jon's feet nearly left the ground. He didn't mind, even though all of the aches in his body sharpened with it. He buried his head into Martin's shoulder as Martin let him settle back down, and he wanted so badly to pretend that they were alright, that this had been the last of it, that he had no condemnatory knowledge implanted within his head. Easier to do so, when Martin had him all gathered up like this.

And then it hit Jon all at once, the sound of his name in Martin's voice, the _sound_ of Martin's voice, static and enticing and--

Jon pulled back abruptly, though he didn't remove himself from Martin's grip entirely. He tried to form a question, tried to pull one together from the blank canvas of shock in his head, but all that came out was a flabbergasted kind of plea: _"Martin?"_

Martin offered him a nervous, watery smile. It looked like it was the only thing stitching him together. "Surprise?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Stranger-typical and NotThem-typical unreality and depersonalization, mention of suicidal ideation.
> 
> TFW the party makes it through a boss level and gets enough XP to collectively level up.


	13. Chapter 13

Fitted sheets weren't a _new_ obstacle for Melanie. Feeling her way through the process wasn't that hard, and she got along well enough with the rest of the bed-making. Fitted sheets were an obstacle in general, for the entire human population of any given ability, and when she felt the far end give way as she tried to tug the near end over the curve of the mattress, she had to relinquish the sheet altogether, in order to take a step back and take a deep, deep breath.

" _Fuck_ you," she said.

Somewhere underneath the bed, the Admiral meowed in response.

"Not you," Melanie amended. "Sorry."

It wasn't really the sheets. She was aware of that, thank you very much, but today it was the sheets that were going to set her off, unless she redirected. She could sit down and wrangle with her feelings later, but right now, having acknowledged that something else lay underneath it all, she needed to do something with her frustration before it landed on a target that didn't deserve it. Though, in her completely honest opinion, whoever had invented this piece of shit linen probably deserved it a little bit.

They'd reworked the whole "five things" exercise in her sessions, because obviously, five things she could see was off the table. It started with four things she could feel, because physical touch seemed to worked better as grounding thing, and so Melanie began.

Four things she could feel? Well, first of all, the stupid bandages around her head, eminently noticeable and scratchy no matter how soft and comfortable they were. She couldn't wait to get the damn things off, and sometimes, she _almost_ thought super-healing might be worth some monstrous consequences. Almost. But-- no, now she was just getting angry at more woven fiber, and that wasn't the point of this exercise.

Four things. The bandages. The carpet underneath her socks, and _why_ Georgie preferred carpeted floors and their mess had been a topic of much ideological debate. The air flow from the fan sitting in the corner, because Melanie ran hot and didn't care for it. The bare mattress beneath her fingers, when she reached out to touch it.

Four things she could feel was followed by three things she could hear, and well...

Melanie drew herself up, heart skipping a painful, nervous beat, because as soon as she paid attention, she became aware of a droning hum trembling at the edges of her hearing, out of place with the normal ebb and flow of flat life. It took her a moment to place it, as it grew imperceptibly louder in a matter of seconds, and then, as quickly as her nerves had flared, she relaxed.

Something rushed past her ankles as she turned, tracking the sound: the Admiral, as a long, scraping creak shuddered through the bedroom, and then the cat meowed, unperturbed.

" _Oh_ ," a voice said in delight, low and steady and yet echoing with vibrato, and the door, that Melanie could still picture so vivid and yellow and out of place no matter where it manifested, creaked closed again. "You shouldn't go in there, little one. Aren't you _adorable_?"

The Admiral meowed again, attention-seeking like the traitor he was. What if it had been something to worry about?

"Wow," Melanie said, folding her arms. "Some guard cat you are."

"Is that his job?" Helen asked, and Melanie couldn't tell if she was joking or not. There was no room for follow-up, however, because a pleasant, "Hello, Melanie," accompanied it, and it occurred to Melanie that there was an actual Spiral monster in their flat, and Georgie was probably on the downward slope of recording for the day.

"Helen," Melanie said, with a nod in the direction of the lilting voice, and she kept her voice firm. "You can't be here."

When Helen sighed, Melanie could _hear_ the air warping with it, like she'd breathed out a singularity. "Why not?"

"Because," Melanie said, and she tossed a fervent prayer to every deity possible, even fear gods, for Georgie to be on the slow side of recording today, "I'm _done_ with the Institute, and my girlfriend will freak out if she sees you, and then I have to deal with that." Bad enough that Georgie kept having dreams that were even more not normal than usual, that she was cagey about it even when she was open and quote-unquote communicating.

"And how _is_ the happy couple?" Helen asked.

"We're... fine," Melanie said. "Great, actually." Giant dream-shaped wedge aside. "But-- look, we're not having this conversation. Can you please just make it quick? Why are you here?"

It was easy to tell when Helen moved. The droning hum of her presence picked up, radiating outward with a mild sense of motion sickness, and the air shivered against Melanie's skin. "Clearly, not for _stimulating_ conversation," Helen said. "I swear, you lot are so ungrateful."

Warm fur brushed against Melanie's ankles again, lingering this time, and after a moment, Melanie bent down to scoop the Admiral up. Less of a guard cat and more of a comfort cat, nowadays. She felt better, with his soft coat between her arms, and he'd bestowed upon her the privilege of holding him for extended periods of time. She needed it, as a seed of worry flared and planted itself between her ribs. "Is something wrong?"

"Hmm," Helen hummed. "Don't need eyes to be _sharp_ , do you?"

The frustration of the day -- more like week, actually -- surfaced again, easy to stoke, and Melanie took a grounding breathing, four in and four out. "If that's some sort of pun about your weird knife hands..." she said, on the tail end of the exhale, "I appreciate it, but still. What are you talking about?"

"There's a man approaching," Helen said, and the worry between Melanie's ribs blossomed in an instant. "He's of the End. I don't know what his intentions are, except that he means to come here-- oh, no need to panic!" she added, as Melanie grimly oriented herself towards the regular door with the help of the bed, arms tightening around the Admiral. "I'll be keeping an eye on things. Worst case scenario, you can always hop into my corridors for a bit. Or shove him through. I'm not picky."

Melanie held still, and it occurred to her that it was probably a bit lunatic, the way that instantly reassured her. "Okay," she said. "When will he be here?"

"Few minutes," Helen answered, somewhere up ahead now, even though Melanie hadn't heard the telltale warp of the droning movement. "You've got time."

The Admiral could sense her agitation and echoed it with a loud meow. Melanie held him tighter, though not so much that he'd wriggle away. "And... that still doesn't explain why _you're_ here. I mean... why do you care, exactly?"

Helen let loose a very long and irritated huff. It sounded louder in one of Melanie's ears than the other, even though she was pretty sure that Helen was right in front of her. Almost sure. Maybe not. "Can I not do a _single_ thing without someone questioning my every move?"

Well, that sounded like personal business. "I mean, thanks," Melanie said, and she tried to make it sincere, because she really did feel the strangest sort of relief at knowing that devouring hallways were available to her and Georgie, should they need a quick escape or the means to handle an avatar, "but... no offense? You are kind of... monster-y?"

" _And?"_ Helen asked.

Melanie went to respond and stopped. She... didn't really have a good answer to that, when she thought about it. She'd just assumed that Helen wouldn't really care to intervene anymore, after Melanie was no longer a part of her monster-y world. "So... " Melanie said, a bit awkwardly, "you're here to help? Because... you want to?"

"Yes!" Helen said, a mocking edge to it. "Now that you don’t have all that _rage_ to protect you...”

Melanie stiffened, frustration bubbling up again, and the Admiral squirmed, wriggling out of her grip. She futilely tried to grasp at him, because if there was an avatar approaching, the Admiral needed to be tucked away into his crate for his own safety. But the cat leapt out of her arms and was gone, and Melanie knew that Georgie would more easily be able to find him and snag him. That there were things that Melanie wasn't so good at now.

It wasn't often that she spent time bitterly cursing her lack of sight, though her therapist had assured her that such thoughts would be a normal part of the process, if and when they occurred. There was too much relief wrapped up in it, in being free, and Georgie's help and encouragement did more than Melanie could possibly say. But this, knowing only that there was a _threat_ out there, coming to their _home_...

“Hmm," Helen mused. "Maybe not so gone after all?”

"Shut up," Melanie said, and she marched forward. She'd left her new cane by the door, and though she didn't really need it in a place as familiar as their flat, it felt better, to have something solid in her hold, even if it didn't make for much of a weapon.

She heard the air warp behind her, a fading chuckle swallowed by nothing, but the faintest buzzing remained, tickling the insides of Melanie's ears like the ground was moving ever so slightly and dumping an excess of motion sickness into her head. It shouldn't have been so reassuring. It was nonetheless.

She made her way to Georgie's studio and barged into the small room without even knocking, and something small and warm rushed past her legs in an instant, in his never-ending quest to get into a room from which he was usually forbidden. The Admiral. Good. Melanie quickly shut the door behind her, trapping him in there with them, satisfied with the fact that she'd caught him after all.

"Melanie?" Georgie's voice said, and above the ever-present and disorienting buzz that now rested in Melanie's ears, there was a clatter of plastic and the rolling of a chair. "You okay?"

Melanie braced herself and inhaled and then spit it out all at once. "There's an End avatar coming here," she said, hand tight around her cane. "Helen told me. You know, the one I told you about? The knife hands? But she's... around, and she can help us if this guy is a problem, and it probably wouldn't be that hard to push him into her door. All we'd need is a doorway, really, so... don't panic."

Naturally, Georgie's voice spiked by nearly an octave. " _What?_ " she demanded, and a meow of protest followed a rustle, which meant that Georgie had no doubt scooped the Admiral up.

Melanie relaxed somewhat, with one problem solved, and she opened the door again, to listen for an inevitable knock or the sound of someone breaking in. "You heard me," Melanie said. "You gonna put the little man in his crate?"

" _Melanie,_ " Georgie said again, her voice still high with frustration and confusion, but she moved. "Okay, I'm going out the door now." Melanie shifted so that Georgie could step past, and another plaintive meow from the Admiral accompanied her. "And what the _hell_ are you talking about? _Helen?_ Isn't she--?"

Melanie followed the quick, agitated sound of her footsteps and the mewling protests from the Admiral. "She is," Melanie said. "We can argue later, okay? Right now, just please-- trust me."

Georgie didn't say anything, but she wasted no time in depositing the Admiral into his crate, much to his displeasure. "I'm going to the kitchen," Georgie said, and Melanie followed, keeping one ear tuned towards the front door and one ear tuned towards the whispering drone of a monstrous presence not yet departed.

"It's not that I don't trust you," Georgie said, her footsteps ringing against the linoleum. "But this... this Helen? You trust _her_?"

"Not completely, no," Melanie said, lingering in the empty doorway, and she hoped that the admission wouldn't drive Helen off. It didn't seem to, if the faint sense of motion sickness still tilting through her ears was any indication. "But it's better to be safe, right?"

A drawer slid open, and a soft clatter and _shing_ of utensils followed.

"Is that a _knife_?" Melanie asked.

"Better to be safe, right?" Georgie echoed grimly.

Well, that was a little distracting to imagine, and more attractive than it had a right to be, which wasn't helped when Georgie came over and announced her intentions and then kissed her, very soft and determined all at once. But all such thoughts were driven out of Melanie's head when a knock came from the front door.

"You should stay here," Georgie said, resigned, like she knew it was a lost cause but was honor-bound to try.

"Fuck off," Melanie said, stepping aside to leave room in the doorway. "And lead the way."

The droning hum was a little louder, in the cramped foyer. Melanie took comfort from that and hoped that she wouldn't regret it in the next few minutes. Georgie was just ahead, her footsteps quick and hard, and the knocking came again, soft and brief. The door handle rattled, as Georgie unlocked it, and a few long moments passed, before she turned it, reluctant and slow, and opened the door.

"Good afternoon, Miss Barker," a voice said, out in the hallway, just as soft as the knocking.

Georgie took a sharp breath. " _You._ "

For some reason, it rather took the wind out of Melanie. "Oh," she said, her head spinning, but maybe that was just the proximity of Helen's presence. "So you know each other." She remembered, suddenly, something that Georgie had asked her for help with, though the memory of it was cloaked in an angry haze. Someone who stank of death, apparently, of whom Georgie had spoken with a similar disdain. "Wait, hang on. Is this the guy from the hospital? The one who was creeping on Jon?"

A deep sigh came from the hallway. "I wasn't," the man said. "But yes. That's me."

"Get out," Georgie snapped, and Melanie didn't think she'd ever heard Georgie so angry before.

"There's no need for the knife," the man said. "I just want to talk."

" _No_ ," Georgie said. "I don't know what you are, or what you did to Jon, but you are _not_ setting foot in here, and you have ten seconds to _get out of here_ before you regret it."

"I didn't do anything to him," the man said, and Melanie heard a shuffling of feet against the hallway floor. "I... lied about being friends, and I know I didn't give you a very good first impression, but, um... listen, can I just say a few things?"

" _Get out_ ," Georgie said, and her body pressed up against Melanie's, like she was pushing back, and the door creaked as it began to close.

Melanie twisted a foot into the carpet and held her ground. "Maybe we should hear him out?" she said. The air hummed nearby, dizzy and disorienting at the edges of her hearing, dangerously reassuring.

She could hear the betrayal in Georgie's sudden intake of breath, but the man spoke up, a little louder, quicker, cutting in. "I know you've been dreaming!" he said, and the air left Georgie in a rush. "And your dreams are not going to stop, Georgie. That's how I know your name." The man sighed again, a melancholy sound. "I'm only here to explain some things, if you're willing to listen. I don't want to hurt you."

Georgie was still, in a calm before the storm kind of way. Melanie could just picture it, Georgie slamming the door in this man's face, lest she have to acknowledge that the dreams weren't getting better. The same problems plaguing them over the past few days would continue: Georgie pretending everything was fine while she got more and more irritable, and Melanie trying unsuccessfully to coax any of it out of her. Melanie took a breath, ready to cut in and demand answers of her own, because if Georgie wasn't going to look out for herself, then Melanie would, and--

"Fine," Georgie snapped, and Melanie choked on her surprise. "But if you try _anything_ \--"

"I know that something else is with us," the man said, grimly. "And I know that it would like to eat me. That knife won't do much against me, but I reckon your friend could."

The air creaked and warped with a pressure that popped through Melanie's ears. "Wouldn't be much of a meal, though," Helen's voice drawled, and Georgie gasped, pressing Melanie back a little further, nearly into the wall of the foyer. "I think it'd be a little _rotten_."

Silence slogged past, and Melanie swallowed the motion sickness and gave up trying to orient where Helen was. 

"You're unusual," the man said, neutral.

"Speak for yourself," Helen said, and the air shivered and popped, and Melanie's stomach lurched with it. "Hello, Georgie. So nice to finally meet you."

Georgie was breathing very forcefully, an arm still pressed up against Melanie. She didn't answer right away, and Melanie's hand grasped at her, stroking reassuringly. She knew that it was sometimes difficult to know if the right call was being made, when you couldn't even tell how much you were realistically supposed to fear it. But Melanie thought that Georgie should be a little more worried about her dreams, and if there were answers here...

"It's okay," Melanie murmured, and she tried to believe that. She didn't want to get caught up in a cat fight between an avatar and... whatever Helen was. She didn't want to make a mistake, in trusting Helen. But she really didn't have much of a choice here. It wasn't like they could make either of them leave. "She's... she _is_ our friend, kind of." 

Georgie let out a slow, frustrated breath. "Could you kill him?" she asked, her voice tight, and it took Melanie a moment to work out that she was addressing Helen.

"Oh?" Helen said, with an edge of delight, and her voice took on an anticipatory air. "Kill's a strong word, but I could do some damage."

"That's really not necessary," the man said, with another deep sigh.

"And don't worry," Helen continued, ignoring him, and the air pulsed in a way that shivered against Melanie's skin and wound dizzily through her ears, "my corridors are no threat to you two."

Georgie still kept an arm between Melanie and the rest of it, but Melanie felt the nod, Georgie's hair tickling against her face. "Alright then," Georgie said, cold and resigned, and she turned, as if facing the hallway. "Come in."

* * *

It went without saying that Georgie had never had such an arrangement in her sitting room before.

She sat on the sofa with Melanie, because Melanie had once again declined to retreat to any safer place, as Georgie had begrudgingly expected. Georgie kept the kitchen knife in one hand, more so because it felt better to have it, than because she really thought that she could do much with it, and Melanie held on to her cane in much the same way.

The man who reeked of death sat perched and deeply uncomfortable at the edge of one of her recliners, across from the sofa, his eyes anywhere but her. The... other person could have been a normal woman, except that her hands were elongated and sharp-fingered, and she never seemed quite aligned in the symmetrical shape of person, and her eyes were strange beyond words. She was draped over the back of the other recliner, leaning forward forward onto it like she was at a bar and watching them all with clear amusement.

The distant sounds of the Admiral's plaintive yowls could be heard occasionally, breaking the stilted silence.

"Well?" Georgie demanded, glaring at the man on her recliner. She wasn't afraid of him, but her heart pounded all the same, like adrenaline rushed through her veins. Like she was anticipating a fight. "You said you want to explain, so... have at it."

The man took a deep breath and lifted his eyes. When his gaze met Georgie's, something cold trickled down her spine, and her throat twisted with revulsion. "My name is Oliver Banks," the man said. "I, uh... I also lied about the Antonio thing."

"I'm shocked," Georgie said, frosty. In the corner of her eye, she saw Melanie's mouth twitch upward. Her warm hand rested in Georgie's, comforting and tight.

"Yes, well... it is a name I use sometimes," Oliver said, and his eyes flicked between Georgie and Melanie and Helen. When Helen noticed, she grinned widely, and the smile shouldn't have fit into the dimensions of her face, and yet it did, somehow. Oliver forcibly returned his attention to Georgie. "I'm sorry. I may have lied to you, but I promise, I didn't do anything to Jon except... make him aware of a choice he had. And that's why I'm here now. To talk to you about choice."

The cold trickling down Georgie's spine spread to the rest of her, into all of her hollow places, and it didn't taste like fear. She wasn't aware of her hand convulsing around Melanie's, until Melanie squeezed back. "What do you mean?" she asked suspiciously, and she didn't entirely believe him. Jon had woken up, and something had been _wrong_ , and it had been the same kind of _wrong_ that clung to Oliver, one that she saw and tasted and smelled and felt, except it didn't come through any sense that she could name. She couldn't explain it. But it was the same kind of _wrong_ in her dreams now too, only it was even worse there, somehow.

Oliver went to speak and stopped. He shifted in the seat, as if unable to find a comfortable position. "I get dreams too," he said. "Got them long before I was what I am. I serve what you know as the End. It's... also known as Terminus. Or... the Coming End That Waits For All And Will Not Be Ignored."

Each word landed like a blow, even though Georgie felt nothing upon impact. Only a numb kind of recognition that she had no explanation for.

"I didn't have anyone to explain it to me," Oliver said. "I had to figure it out on my own. Spent a long time trying to escape it. But the thing is, it was futile. And all of that running that I did, all of those attempts to throw it off or stop what I saw... it really just made it worse, in the end. Lead to deaths that could have been avoided. I may serve Terminus, but I don't go out of my way to spread it. I regret those, sometimes."

"You killed people?" Georgie asked, fingers tight around the knife, around Melanie.

"Got them killed," Oliver clarified. "But... no difference, really, and that doesn't matter now. Not the point I'm trying to make. The point..." he shifted again, and for a moment, the sockets of his eyes seemed hollow like the carved out places in her head, "is that your dreams are only just beginning, Georgie. Now that you are able to see past, now that things are... _changing_. And eventually, you, too, will have to make a choice."

Georgie wasn't aware of surging to her feet, except when Melanie tugged at her, and Oliver's eyes followed her up. The knife still dangled in her hand, like she could brandish it and drive this horrid person out of her flat, and she was aware of Helen's mismatched, disorienting, curious eyes burning a hole into her.

"I don't _get_ those dreams," Georgie said, breathing hard, and she let Melanie coax her back down. "They're _Jon's_ dreams. I just happen to get sucked into them."

"I'm afraid not," Oliver said gravely. "They're yours. Your brush with the Watcher just... accelerated something that was always going to happen. You might even be able to break from the Watcher soon."

Georgie gritted her teeth. The Watcher was... was Jon's thing. Was the thing that Melanie had to stab her own eyes out to get away from. "And why should I trust what you say? When you _just_ admitted that you lied to me? When you're..." _Wrong_ , she thought, an inexplicable certainty that she could not name or define. When he reeked of it, and she wanted to take the knife and drive him off, even though she had never been a violent person. It wasn't out of fear. It was... she didn't know what it was, only that it rang hot in the hollowed out parts of her where fear should be.

"No offense," Melanie added, because apparently she'd somehow become the diplomatic one, between them. "But how do you know?"

Oliver almost looked sorrowful as his hollow eyes regarded Georgie, and she wanted to punch the look right off of his face. "I just do," Oliver said. "It's... part of being what I am. I'm sure you know things too, Georgie. Things that you can't explain."

The knife slipped a bit, between fingers that were going slack, and Georgie belatedly remembered to keep a grip on it. She saw the dissection room. Felt the tide of _something_. Saw the blood, and felt not one, but two terrible gazes, fixed upon each other. Her stomach turned with the same revulsion she felt when she looked at Oliver. _Wrong._

"He's telling the truth," Helen chimed in at last, and two pairs of eyes and one pair of ears turned to her. She smiled and tilted her head, and it was not properly aligned with her neck, which did nothing to help Georgie's twisting stomach. "I'm an expert in lying, you know." She tossed a sympathetic glance in Georgie's direction, and it was almost certainly mocking. "Sorry."

Melanie's hand tightened around Georgie's again, and she turned her head back in Oliver's general direction. "Then what do you mean by _choice_?" she asked, like she just accepted Helen at her word. Like she _trusted_ something with hands made for stabbing, something that looked different in ways indescribable every time Georgie glanced her way. "Or... _changing_ , or whatever it is you said?"

"I couldn't tell you," Oliver said, and if Georgie didn't know better, didn't know that he was just as much of a monster as the other thing in this room, she would have thought that he was genuinely apologetic. "It's only a feeling. I'm connected to my patron, but... I don't always understand what I pick up from it." His voice dried out, with a touch of self-deprecation. "I'm just a messenger. But... something is amiss. I can tell you that much. The End is restless, and that _will_ rebound on you, Georgie." His voice grew firm. "It was always going to, after you survived it. It was only a matter of time."

"Shut up," Georgie said, her voice trembling, her anger hot. "I didn't-- I would never _choose_ to be like you."

"Oh, don't be so sure," Helen drawled from her chair.

Georgie sucked in a furious breath. "I knew this was a mistake," she said, and she let go of Melanie's hand and surged to her feet again, glaring down at Oliver, knife held loosely between her fingers. "Get out."

Oliver stood, slow and cautious, like he was trying not to make any sudden moves. Melanie stood too, quick and wobbly. "Wait," she said, turned in Oliver's direction, not Georgie's. "You said _seeing past_. What does that mean?"

"Melanie," Georgie snapped. She couldn't _believe_ how much Melanie was willing to indulge this sort of thing, after all of the work and suffering she'd put into pulling herself free from it. Because that was the problem: indulging this, letting it get into your home, into your head. After today, they were done with all of this. No more phone calls, no more letting monsters into their flat. Georgie would start looking into any therapies for bad dreams, if she had to.

"Answer the question," Melanie said, ignoring her, and Georgie let out an explosive sigh.

Oliver's eyes flicked between them, like he wasn't quite sure who to listen to. "Encounters with the End tend to... open your eyes to certain truths," he ventured, when Georgie didn't immediately protest.

"Is there _really_ such a thing as objective truth?" Helen interjected. She hadn't moved from her languid position, leaning against the back of the recliner, and she watched them like they were a particularly entertaining sport. Georgie was less certain about the ease of kicking _her_ out of the flat, when Helen didn't appear quite as deferential. But at the very least, Helen seemed to have some kind of weird bond with Melanie, and so maybe she'd listen. Not that Melanie was at all on the same wavelength as Georgie, right now.

Oliver sighed and ignored the interruption and edged away, as Georgie continued to level a glare at him. "You'll see more and more of that," he said to Georgie, "as time passes. Whether you want to or not. It's... what happened to me."

Melanie's frown was pronounced around her bandages. "Seeing?" she asked. "That sounds like the Eye."

"Maybe that's not the right way to say it," Oliver admitted. "I don't know. Like I said, I'm only a messenger. And I've delivered my message, so... I'll take my leave now." He paused, long and awkward, and took another dragging step away. "Thank you for... hearing me out."

Georgie didn't say anything, lest she somehow tempt him into remaining any longer when she wanted him _out_ , and all she did was keep up her glare. But Oliver was halfway to the foyer when Melanie spoke again, rotating to face in his direction once more. "And _why_?"

" _Melanie_ ," Georgie hissed.

"Why the message?" Melanie persisted, undeterred.

Oliver stopped. He shuffled his feet near the foyer, something distant settling into his face. "I'm... not sure," he said. "No one asked me to, I just..." He shrugged and huffed, almost wry. "Maybe I still have something of a heart. And the thought of you ending up like me..." His smile was faint and devoid of humor, as he met Georgie's eyes, and the sense of it ran down her spine like the deepest winter chill. Like the scraping, icy claws of something too great for words, too deep and devouring to make sense of. "Well... thinking otherwise is futile, isn't it?"

And then he was gone, into the shadows of the foyer with a click of the front door.

Silence fell, home to the Admiral's occasional muffled meows, and the soft hum of city life outside, and the deep, aching buzz that seemed to emanate from Helen, rattling down between Georgie's teeth. She stood there, still and unable to move, her limbs weighty like the phantom grip of the dead woman had returned to drag her down. She didn't know what she felt, now that the reek of death was gone. Numb, maybe. Like nothing was bouncing around in the hollow parts of her head, or anywhere else within her, for that matter.

Except... it wasn't gone, was it?

"Well," Helen said, straightening up from the recliner and stretching her arms, her fingers wobbling in a disorienting wave, "how _illuminating_."

"Yeah," Melanie said, and now her voice shook, the trembling sound of it cutting through most of Georgie's irritation with her. "What the _hell?_ " Melanie tapped her way forward and located Helen's position easily enough, to direct her own clearly suspicious glare in that direction. "What do _you_ know about this, huh?"

"Not much, I'm afraid," Helen said, and a look crossed her face that Georgie didn't like, that broke through the numbness of her limbs and had her taking a few steps towards Melanie, though she hardly took her eyes from the sharp-fingered creature in their sitting room. Something changed, in Helen's tone. Focused, eager. It made Georgie want to lift the knife. "But I do have the most _interesting_ bit of gossip for you. Would you like to hear it?"

Melanie stilled, posture growing wary, fingers tightening around her cane. "Don't think I would," she said, stiff.

Helen only chuckled, dismissively waving a few flickering fingers, and the sharp drone of the movement cut the air like a knife. "Too bad," she said. "Did you know that your former boss turned the Archivist into a ritual?"

Melanie's face went slack beneath her bandages. Helen moved around the chair, almost a walk and almost a glide. Georgie inched even closer to Melanie, though she knew that the knife still in her hands would be less than useless.

"The only ritual _actually_ capable of ending the world?" Helen added, like she was enjoying herself and divulging some scandalous secret.

Melanie went rigid, and Georgie crossed the last distance between them and took Melanie's arm into her own. "Stop," Georgie said, turning her glare on Helen, swallowing and refusing to let the words land. They had _enough_ to deal with already.

The words landed anyway, rattling around in the hollow parts beneath her skull, even though Georgie could hardly understand them. Thursday, she knew, numb. An end had almost begun, last Thursday.

" _What?_ " Melanie finally managed to demand, like she hadn't heard Georgie at all. "But... the Unknowing..."

"Nope!" Helen said cheerfully. "Always destined to fail. They all were. Let me tell you, that revelation _might_ have stung some pride, a bit." She shook her head, and it sent her hair cascading about in patterns that made no sense, that were impossible under the laws of gravity. "The only ritual left is the one carved into our mutual friend. Quite literally, too." A smile curled across Helen's face. It wasn't a nice smile. "That nasty stab wound you gave him? You put the Slaughter right into him."

Melanie might as well have been a statue in Georgie's hold, her jaw so tight that it was a wonder she didn't grind her teeth into dust. Only the cane shook in her grip, betraying the impact of the words.

" _Stop_ ," Georgie spat out at Helen, even as she tossed the knife aside so that she could rub Melanie's back and envelop her more fully in a tight embrace. She had half a mind to tug Melanie out of the room, as if that could somehow stop any more words from coming. But it wouldn't, no more than the knife would.

Helen laughed, and the sound seemed to bend back on itself, warping the air around her. "No," she said. "I don't think I will. Things don't _stop_ just because you want them to." She sighed, like the grating of a chainsaw, and folded her arms into a confusing mass of twisting, sharp fingers and too-long limbs. " _All_ of the fears, leaving their little marks, until it was enough to bring them _all_ through at once. Can you imagine?"

Her mismatched gaze moved from Melanie to Georgie and back. Challenge glittered in her eyes, out from the strange depths of colors and patterns within.

"They stopped it, obviously," Helen continued, "or the world would look very different right now. But it was a close call, I'm led to believe, and it's far from over." She shrugged, an undulating motion of shoulders not positioned at the same height. "I know you've been trying to stick your head in the sand and pretend that the world isn't full of horrible, nasty, _awful_ things, and that you've somehow earned the right to hide from it, but I figured _someone_ had to let you know. Especially since, well..." Helen laughed again, a cutting, chiming edge to it. "Not so easy to hide after all, is it?"

Georgie's head pounded, with the soft ring of Oliver's words and the jangling ring of Helen's. The hollow parts of her remained empty of fear and filled slowly with something else, something that curled and bent around the words, that made her listen, made her stomach turn.

"It seemed kinder to rip the band-aid off now," Helen said, with that mock sympathy. "Since you've learned so much today already. What you do with that information is your _choice_ , of course." Her mismatched eyes fixed on Georgie, an impossible grin stretching wide across her face, before her gaze moved back to Melanie. "Just know that your relative immunity to the Eye won't protect you, Melanie." Georgie might have only imagined it, that Helen's voice grew a tad softer. "But, if I had to guess? It might just be of some use."

Melanie let loose all of her breath in a rush, like she'd been holding it in. "What the _hell_?" she asked hoarsely.

Helen stepped back towards a door that Georgie hadn't seen before, that stood within the wall of the flat where it shouldn't be, yellow and angular and practically glowing at the edges. "I don't actually _know_ as much as you all seem to think," Helen said, with a nauseating eye roll, and Georgie didn't quite see her move, couldn't quite place where her feet landed, when she walked and opened the door with a long creak. "But I would assume that the _change_ that Mister Banks mentioned is connected. So... I'll leave you two to chew on that. Kiss your darling cat for me!"

And then she was gone, and when Georgie blinked, the air was empty of the buzzing and the droning, and the wall of the flat was bare, as if the yellow door had never been there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note: TMA is coming back soon, and with the exception of a few more things I've pulled and reworked from Season 5 up to MAG 176, most of the rest of this fic will be its own thing. I might change some less important things if something extra cool happens, but overall, it'll be from my own brain and theories. So if this fic at any point resembles the rest of Season 5, and I don't mention changing something, it'll be because Jonny and I are riding the same brain waves.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

The trip back to the hotel was brief and blurry and likely only successful because of Basira. They didn't talk much, laboring under a collective exhaustion, but Basira took charge easily, something in her posture and voice a little more bright-eyed and determined than anything that could be found in the rest of them. She had enough extra clothes stashed away in her car that they were able to cover the worst of the residue from the night, in order to get back into the hotel without raising suspicion.

They didn't have to worry about the mess they left behind, either. It seemed the Hunt ate blood, too, and left behind grooves carved into reality that couldn't be seen, only felt.

Things felt... strange. Jon felt strange. Like something wasn't quite right, between the planes of his skin and the folds of reality. The sense of it all around him abated, as they neared the hotel, but the feeling beneath his skin remained. He didn't think it was the Stranger, and he wasn't even certain that it was anything to worry about, really. It was simply the sense that things had been rearranged within him, that something had entered through his scars and moved it all by a few centimeters when he wasn't looking.

His hand throbbed and ached, and the worm scars itched, and his throat was still wrecked, even though the scar there was no longer trying to cut into him. It was all so distracting, like the whispers of unidentifiable change within him had removed a numbing film between Jon and his aches. He was _there_ , in his own body, and it was heavy, and he was tired, and he didn't understand how he could be so wired and so exhausted at the same time.

Basira pulled into the car park, and Jon did one last check of Martin, doing his best to ignore the aches shivering through him. They'd wiped away what they could of the blood and... other things from Martin's visible skin, and Basira even had a cap to cover up the head wound. Arterial tissue, Jon thought absently, as he wiped at a still-visible streak of something that wasn't blood. Once coating the muscle tissue, and god, _shut up,_ he didn't want to know what bits of Trevor's brain had splattered onto Martin.

Martin let himself be fussed over without resistance, which was in and of itself concerning, and the listlessness with which he moved was far too reminiscent of the effects of the Lonely. It was likely just shock, Jon reminded himself, and a head wound. Martin was already wrapped up and warm, and they'd get some rest and patch themselves up, and it would be fine.

They exited the backseat, and Jon made sure that his scarf was wrapped thoroughly around his neck, covering the bloodstains there. Daisy left the passenger's seat stiffly, just ahead of him, her eyes fixed on the ground and the furrow between her eyes deep and dark. Jon took a hesitant step forward and managed a hoarse word. "Hey..."

Daisy didn't look at him. She swept around the car and went to join Basira.

Jon went cold, as he stopped and stared after her. She hadn't looked at him once, after the Hunt had retreated, and had only answered his tentative ventures with single words or grunts. She responded to Basira a tad more, at least, but still... Jon was worried.

Worried that he'd made a mistake. Worried that he'd done something unintended to her by tempering her connection to the Hunt. Worried that she knew exactly what it meant, that he'd been able to do that, and that she was furious with him for it.

Martin's warm presence appeared at Jon's side, pulling Jon out of his thoughts, and they made their way into the hotel.

The glow of artificial lighting assaulted his senses as they entered, startling contrast to the soft shadows of the night, and Jon blinked his itchy eyes, his head filling with white noise. The temperature of the building was a few degrees off because the heating system needed fixing as of yesterday afternoon, and repairs were scheduled bright and early this morning, and there were two other patrons in the lobby, one waiting for a man who wouldn't come, and one who--

Jon nearly stumbled, but Martin caught him by the elbow and steadied him. "Just--" Jon said, in response to Martin's concerned once-over. "Just dizzy. It's passing."

He got his feet steady and hurried them on, because others in the lobby were glancing their way, and they followed Basira and Daisy up to their floor.

"We'll talk in the morning," Basira said, as she stopped by their neighboring rooms and unlocked the door to hers and now Daisy's. "Well... I guess it is morning, but later. Get some rest." To Jon's surprise, she reached out and squeezed his shoulder as he stepped past, which was... not unwelcome, but weird. Basira flicked a glance in Martin's direction, her brows drawing together. "Let me know if anything gets worse."

Jon nodded and remembered to say, "Thank you, Basira," even though the drone of the malfunctioning heating system was too loud in his ears, and anything else they could have said was eclipsed by Daisy pushing past and entering the room without a word. Without a glance in Jon's direction and hardly a glance in Basira's.

Jon's heart thumped in his chest, like he'd been struck there, and something writhed behind his eyes, wanting to know. Basira's frown deepened. "In the morning," she said again, a noncommittal murmur, and then she disappeared after Daisy.

In their own hotel room, the pressure on Jon's senses seemed to abate, the knowing and desire to know lessening to a trickle that was easier to tune out than the sore throbbing in his hand and the crusty feeling of nearly dried blood on his neck. He peeled the scarf away and grimaced at the bloodstains on it, as Martin pulled the cap off and crossed the room to flick the nightstand lamp on.

This light didn't hurt Jon's strained eyes so much, and yet even though he was no longer seized with facts about this place or the uncomfortable, painful longing to know why Daisy couldn't stand to talk to him anymore, something else entirely settled in its place, as the light illuminated Martin.

Jon _wanted_. The familiar static crackle of Martin's voice echoed in Jon's head, and he wanted to _know_ , to _understand_ what it was. It leapt up into his wrecked throat, yearning and hungry, and Jon choked it down.

He must have made a noise, because Martin's eyes snapped to him. "You okay?" Martin asked, his voice reedy with exhaustion.

Jon forced himself to nod. He wasn't, not at all, but this wasn't _about_ him, Martin had just been _attacked_ and had used _powers_ to defend himself, and it was Jon's fault that he was in this mess in the first place. Martin had a head wound, for god's sake. They really should have been going straight to a clinic, but Martin had already dug his heels in and balked at the idea. "We need to take a look at that," Jon said. "Your head, I mean."

"I've got it," Martin said, though he made no move in any direction.

"Do you--" Jon croaked, unbearable uncertainty washing over him, and he gestured vaguely to the toilet, "do you want it first?" Martin frowned at him, looking vaguely hurt, and Jon amended. "I mean... do you... want to be alone?" He couldn't tell, and the clawing behind his eyes, the desire to _know_ , was building up into a deep and unending pressure, frightening in how intensely it roiled beneath the surface of his mind. It shouldn't have been, not when he was feeling, well... strangely sated. And yet still so _hungry_. "I'd... really rather not be," he added, because the last thing he wished was for Martin to feel unwanted. "But if you..." Jon sighed, then. No, this wasn't going to work. "What do you need right now?"

There. Better.

"I'm not gonna break, Jon," Martin said, his voice softer than the pointed words. "Jesus." He stepped past and opened the door to the toilet, then gave Jon an expectant look.

Once inside, Jon set to work gathering towels and soap and the like, as best he could when he could hardly stand to let anything so much as touch his right arm, and he watched out of the corner of his eye, watched as Martin made no move to tend to his injury himself. Jon wanted desperately to take a look at it, and the fleeting thought crossed his mind that he could _ask_ what Martin really wanted right now, and he recoiled from it, snapping his gaze to the toiletries, to the mirror.

Martin stood at his end of the counter, nearer to the door, and Jon stood at the other, leaning forward towards the mirror and keeping his gaze fixed determinedly on the reflection of bloodstains, the rivulets staining his neck like a bad horror film. He had hardly started to inspect them, however, when Martin spoke.

"Can I--?" Martin began, his reflection hesitant in the wide mirror. "Can I do it?"

Jon pulled back, giving him a sideways look. "I've got it," he said, as gently as he could.

"Please!" Martin's voice pitched higher and sharper all at once, and even he seemed surprised, after it left his mouth. He wavered, feet shuffling. "I just... let me help. Please."

"Alright," Jon said, without fuss, and he shifted to lean a hip against the counter, as Martin stepped forward, his reflection crossing the middle trim of the double mirror.

Martin picked up a damp towel and was halfway to Jon's neck when he froze. He stared down at Jon, his jaw working hard, his expression pulling tight, and Jon almost asked him what was wrong. Almost, except for the way that static leapt to clog his throat before he even took a breath. He swallowed it down bitterly and waited.

"I, um," Martin said, and the hand with the towel drooped, "I wanted you to read a statement, remember? And I asked you to take one. From me. You didn't want to do any of that, but... you did." He looked away, his chest beginning to rise and fall a little too fast. "You didn't _want_ to."

Jon's heart sank. Is that what Martin had been stewing on since the reservoir? Not worry for himself, for his situation and what it meant for him, but for how it might have affected Jon? "That's not how--"

But Martin wasn't done. "And what else? These things, they don't just come out of nowhere! I've been trying to remember if I might have asked anything, or done anything, lately, and I mean, just now, did you actually _want_ me to help, or--?"

"Martin!" Jon said, loud enough to cut through the words, even though it tugged stiffly on his throat. "That's not how it works."

"Really?" Martin asked. "'Cause it’s not like you know what you're talking about, is it?"

Jon heaved a sigh and then had to cough to clear the thick soreness. "Okay," he said, short. "I deserve that. But, believe me, I hardly need any encouragement to _want_ statements, and that is not what happened there. I didn't feel _compelled_."

Martin looked like he was contemplating hurling up their dinner from earlier. "Is that gonna happen to me?" he asked, strained, small. "The... the wanting statements?"

Jon couldn't bear it anymore, his own worry, and Martin's bleeding out of him, and the sheer uncertainty of the situation. He stepped forward and cupped Martin's face with his uninjured hand, and he spoke as firmly as he could. "I don't know," Jon said. "But there is a degree of choice in the matter, however small it is. I... chose to become this, rather than die. You might... keeping changing, but... I'm hard-pressed to believe that it will be anything quite so thorough, without a conscious decision on your part."

Martin didn't look entirely reassured at the words, but he didn't look quite so strung out, either. He leaned into Jon's hand and brought one of his own up to rest over it. "I'm... I'm sorry," Martin said. "I didn't know what else to do, and you went all Stranger-y and weird, and I just... I _knew_ it would work if I--"

"It's alright," Jon said. "I'm glad you did it." Martin didn't look convinced, so Jon trailed his hand down from Martin's face to his neck, and Martin shivered under his touch. "And even _if_ you have at any other point compelled me to say anything, I don't care. It isn't your fault, and you couldn't have known." He ran a thumb along Martin's jaw. "Didn't you tell me a similar thing about your Prentiss statement?"

He couldn't tell if his words were received as intended. Martin's face shuttered behind something careful and unreadable, so perhaps not, and he lifted the towel again. He opened his mouth to ask, then stopped. Instead, he tilted his head in a silent question.

Martin was careful as he wiped the blood away, and Jon thought about that, as he braced himself against the counter and let Martin work. About willingly letting someone get so close to his neck, after everything. It wasn't even difficult. At this point, Jon wasn't quite sure how to articulate it without spooking Martin, however, so he hoped it came across clearly enough -- how he chose to trust that Martin would handle him well. No matter what _abilities_ might be burgeoning.

"Does it need anything?" Martin asked, as he stepped away and rinsed the towel out once more.

"No," Jon said, turning to regard himself in the mirror and tug his hair free. No more rivulets and crusty stains. Only the scar, deep red in a way that drew the eye. "It's just tender." He looked away from the mirror and took in the sight of the blood and brain matter on Martin. He _knew_ that most of it was Trevor's, but some of the blood was Martin's, coating the left side of his head. "Ah... let me--?"

Finally, Martin relented and let Jon inspect the injury, and it wasn't as bad as Jon had feared. The cut itself, the one that had bled, buried underneath Martin's curls, was actually quite small and long since dry. A nasty bruise was already forming around his ear, trailing up under his hair and down towards his jaw. Jon had to bite off the desire to look and _know_ if it came with a concussion. He wouldn't, if Martin didn't ask him to. At the very least, rest and taking it easy would be a good start.

"It can't hurt to get this looked at," Jon said, as he gently rubbed the blood and other gore away.

Martin shook his head and winced. "Just want to sleep," he said, quiet, and Jon resolved to needle him about it tomorrow, after they'd gotten some rest.

Martin hardly said another word after that, and part of Jon longed to breach the silence. To ask and _ask_ and dig into the thing that had Martin growing withdrawn, had him crawling into bed after changing, without waiting for Jon, without so much as a good night. But neither of them were in any state to talk right now, and Jon's worry and curiosity could _wait_.

Jon redirected his focus to the coat he'd removed and brought out the recorder and the three tapes within, and something that was not his stomach lurched and leapt. Taking measured breaths, he retrieved the duffel bag with the other tapes and statements and the Leitner, and he carried it all to the table in two trips, finding it nearly unbearable to even rest the bag's handle against his right arm at the moment.

He tucked Basira's tape and the recorder into the bag, then pulled out the extra tape recorder. The one he'd found on Martin, after they'd escaped the Lonely a second time. The one that Martin had spoken into, the one he'd used to keep himself from sinking into the depths of the Forsaken. The one that had carried his voice to Jon.

Jon gazed at it and wondered what it meant. Pressure throbbed behind his eyes, like the pounding of fists on a door in his mind, but he bit down on his tongue and set the recorder aside.

He pulled out the rime-encrusted tape next. It was as frozen as ever, and he laid it out next to the inverted tape and the bloodstained one, and then he stared down at them. Hunger clawed at the back of his throat and whined between his ears, even though he'd had enough so-called statements to last him a good long while, and a memory of the last time he'd tried to _look_ passed across his thoughts like a beckoning shadow. How his mind hadn't been able to hold even a fraction of it, how _too much_ had threatened to overwhelm every centimeter of him.

And yet... he _wanted_ it still. Something was different now, like his skin and self hadn't settled down quite like they used to be. He was stronger, perhaps. Strong enough, to look long and hard enough, to get a real answer. Not a guess, not an uncertainty. An answer that would get them somewhere, past all of this stumbling around in the dark. Where had the initial tapes come from, the ones that Basira hadn't sent? What was the significance of these strange tapes, pulled directly from himself, from the powers? What had happened to Martin? What was going on?

_I'm just too damned curious, I suppose. You?_

_No. Whatever's going on, I need to know._

Jon tore his eyes away from the tapes and glanced across the room, to the bed. To Martin, fast asleep, exhausted. He squeezed his bandaged hand and felt it, real and sharp, so jolting and awful that he let out a hiss between his teeth and bent his head over the table, good hand clutching at the wrist below his injured one.

No. He didn't think he was there. Not yet, at least. Such looking seemed to work better _within_ the clutches of the powers, and that, Jon thought, inhaling around the fleeting, phantom clog of crushing dirt in his sore throat, had been a consistent thing since before the botched ritual.

Jon stuffed the tapes back into the duffel bag as fast as one good hand would let him, and then he withdrew something else he'd also tucked away in there, just in case: one of Daisy's knives, sheathed in leather. It wasn't like he really knew how to wield this sort of thing, or if it would even be all that effective, but he'd already damn near lost his voice once, and there was no telling if it would happen again, via the scar or whatever damage the ritual had inflicted on the inside of his throat. He wondered what a doctor might find, if he took himself to a clinic.

Jon tucked the knife into the folds of the mattress beneath his side of the bed, then crawled into bed with Martin, too tired to spare even a passing guilty thought for the dreams into which he would inevitably sink.

* * *

Later that morning, when crisp golden light flooded through the curtains, and they were both a little cleaner and less exhausted, they sat on the bed with two tape recorders between them, one of them whirring away softly. Martin had drawn his knees up, encircling them with his arms, like that would somehow hold him steady against the ache in his head and the weight in his stomach. The painkillers had helped somewhat, but they couldn't take the edge off entirely.

Jon was across from him, legs folded beneath himself, brows furrowed as he gazed down at the recorders. He had a fresh wrap of bandages around his hand and no trace of any blood left trailing from his throat, and yet Martin couldn't stop himself from studying Jon, noting details and hunting for any whisper of a problem out of nervous habit.

Easier to focus on that, than on anything else right now.

"Before we do this," Jon said, and he lifted his eyes to meet Martin's, and Martin couldn't have looked away even if he wanted to, "I-- you should know that I'm... very hungry for answers. I look at you, and... I _want_ to know, very badly. I want to _ask_ , and... I have to stop myself. I know it's... if that's uncomfortable for you..."

Martin's hands clenched around his legs, as he broke the gaze to stare down at the tape recorders, and he knew in a detached sort of way that his spike of irritation was unfair. That didn't stop the words from grinding out. "Why do you do that?"

Jon blinked at him. "What?"

"You--" Martin said, and he couldn't eject the tremor from of his voice, "lately, it's like, sometimes you say things like you want me to react and tell you that I'm, that I'm disgusted or scared, or that actually I don't want to be around you anymore, or something stupid like that." Jon's eyes were wide, his mouth working open with clear protest about to fall out, but Martin didn't stop. "What if _I_ start getting hungry, hmm? It's just, the way you talk about yourself sometimes, the way you talk about someone I _love_ , by the way... are you going to think those things about _me_?"

Jon leaned forward, reaching out over the tape recorders, though his hand only fluttered, when Martin didn't reach back. "No, no, _Martin_ , I wouldn't, I-- I didn't mean it like that. I just wanted to be..."

But Jon stopped and took a breath, and the wheels turned visibly in his head. He leaned back, as if recalibrating, and his voice grew firmer, his stare so fixed, so unblinking that it sliced right through the defensiveness keeping Martin's arms tight around his knees.

"You told me that you aren't going anywhere, no matter what happens to me," Jon said. "Yes?" All Martin could do was nod, and Jon returned it, a single, steady dip of his head. "Well. Same to you, then."

Martin's breathing was too fast, like it was building up to carry him away from his own body. He knew in a detached sort of way that he had just been having a time of it lately, and it didn't help that his head hurt and his brain was fuzzy from last night's attack. He was bound to crack sometime. It was expected, really. It didn't meant that he had to like it. He nodded and looked down at the bedspread and couldn't focus on the diamond pattern enough to stubbornly steady himself, and yet something steadied within him all the same, as he slowly unwrapped his arms and let his legs collapse down.

Jon was the worst liar he'd ever met, and there was no lie in the words.

"And for the record," Jon added, "I love you too."

God, it really wasn't fair that Jon could just _say_ such disarming things, and without any tingling of compulsion too, when it was Martin who was supposed to be good at words, and it really wasn't fair that Martin just _broke_.

Jon's alarm and the resultant movement were blurs in Martin's awareness, but he could feel Jon's hesitation give way to certainty when Martin sank desperately into his embrace. Martin really, really did not want to be doing this right now, because there was so much that they needed to figure out and plan for, and Daisy was back, and Jon had nearly gotten _eaten_ by the thing that took Sasha. But maybe that was it: all of it, hitting him at once, while his head throbbed courtesy of a Hunter bludgeoning him, and his mouth tingled with the memory of pins and needles.

So Martin sobbed into Jon's arms, and even the jolt of hearing Tim and Sasha, the real Sasha, hadn't pulled it out of him like this. He hadn't thought he could, really, after the Lonely. Like it had frozen something so deep in his core that nothing could ever break that ice: except, it seemed, the deceptive and safe mundanity of a peaceful little hotel room painted in chilly October gold, and Jon's lovely, raspy voice telling Martin that he _loved_ him and wasn't going to leave.

It took its time, too, and by the time the heaving sobs petered out into a quiet and erratic trickle, Martin's head felt no better for it. It felt awful, all swollen face and empty, hollow insides, and Martin had little desire to extract himself from Jon's hold or move much at all. He became aware, presently, that Jon had pulled them back so that he was leaning against the pillows and headboard, and Martin was leaning into him, and Jon had his injured hand balanced delicately away, though the rest of him seemed determined to make up for it. Not so long ago, Martin never would have guessed that Jon was so _clingy_.

A shaky apology arrived at the tip of Martin's tongue, before he remembered that they really had to stop doing that quite so much. He opened his mouth and then snapped it closed, and Jon noticed, of course. His aimless fingers tensed in Martin's hair.

"We can do this later," he murmured, and Martin felt him twitch a foot out, nudging the tape recorders.

Oh, Jesus Christ. The little things had caught that whole breakdown. Great. "No," Martin said, and his voice was nearly as ragged as Jon's. "Now. I..." He had to stop and clear his throat, and his voice emerged stronger, on the second try. "I want to know." Like he'd itch right out of his own skin, if he went much longer without some kind of understanding. No wonder he was able to speak in compulsions now. "If... if there's anything _to_ know." If it wasn't just a natural progression. Maybe the same thing would happen to any archival assistant. After all, Martin had been there the longest, with-- with the others gone.

"Alright," Jon said, and Martin felt the warm press of a kiss against his head. The air trembled with those same pins and needles, a tingling down Martin's spine, when Jon spoke next. "Have you felt the presence of the Eye lately?"

"I think so," Martin said, and after a bout of crying like that, the relief was heady and guilty, when the words pulled themselves together for him, when something else identified and connected everything he'd been frantically turning over in his head since Jon had driven off the Hunt and relinquished the Stranger. "I've been _knowing_ things, sometimes? I thought they were just guesses, but looking back, it feels like _more_ than intuition. Maybe that's just confirmation bias, but-- no, I _know_ something else has been with me. I've felt... _seen_. Exposed. In the village, back in Scotland, in the park. And I think I may have compelled you a few times. I--"

"Okay," Jon said softly, and the words fell away. Martin took another breath, and Jon added, "Don't apologize."

The breath left Martin with a rush of fondness, and he didn't particularly want to pull away, but he did, when Jon went silent afterwards and then stiffened. Martin pushed himself up, a hand on either side of Jon as he paused to stare down at the man beneath him. Jon was frowning out at nothing in particular, although his good hand reached forward instinctively, tracking Martin. Fingers trailed across Martin's arm, sending another shiver down his spine.

"Is it..." Martin said. "Are you having trouble seeing?"

Jon shook his head, frown settling into place. "No, it's..." His eyes were red at the edges, Martin observed, and though the scar at his throat had been cleaned, it made for another stark splash of reddened skin. As did the jagged little holes, honeycomb patches of red, and Martin realized with a jolt that he was staring at Jon while Jon stared at nothing. That he was looking. "It's, um..."

The air was heavy, like another presence had been brought to bear, and something else entirely trailed a chill down Martin's back. Jon's breathing quickened, and Martin's head throbbed with a spike of anxiety. "What?"

"It's..." Jon said, dazedly, and the frown gave way to something like confusion, something too close to horror for comfort. "We..."

He jerked back, so sudden that Martin jumped back too, ending up on his knees with a placating arm stretched outward. "Jon," Martin said, heart pounding now, and it did nothing for his bruised head. Neither did the sight of Jon pressed up against the pillows and headboard with horror bleeding away into something like anguish, and neither did the heady thickness of the air. "What's wrong? What did you see?"

Martin didn't mean to do it. He hadn't realized that it could slip out so easily, as something _else_ surged up his throat, eager and alien and hungry to understand, all too noticeable now, making a home in the air that left his lungs before he was even aware of it.

"We're bound together," Jon said, the dazed fear in his voice superseded by the steady intonation of a statement, and the sound of it dropped in Martin's stomach like a stone. "When the emergence was obstructed, the existence of the Archivist and his Assistant were inextricably entangled. The Eye blinked, and it--" He clapped a hand over his mouth, a jerky motion, but a last few words slipped out anyway, his hand tearing away beneath the force of them. "The Ceaseless Watcher caught you in its gaze, when it looked upon me."

The words reverberated through Martin's aching head and spine, even though he could hardly make sense of them. The terrible memory of Jon pinned beneath him, fighting for the statement, was suddenly vivid in his mind, the _certainty_ of how to stop it an echo at the back of his skull. Martin's breathing picked up to match Jon's, and he had to gulp down air to keep himself from getting even more lightheaded, to keep the pins and needles out of his mouth. "Wh-- what does that _mean_?"

"It, uh... I don't know," Jon said, and he shook his head back and forth faintly, as if in denial, his eyes unfocused. "You-- you stopped the ritual, and it's why you have these abilities now, but I don't-- I don't understand." He looked sick with realization. "Something similar happened to Gertrude. With Agnes. She'd been... she meant to stop a Desolation ritual, but... it wasn't that, it was the _Web_. The Web used it to bind them, bind their existences somehow, and I..." He swallowed. "God, what if it's... what game is it playing? What--"

"Do you _know_ that?" Martin asked.

When he tried reaching out again, Jon didn't meet him halfway. He stayed pressed into the pillows, though his gaze grew a little more focused, as he made himself look at Martin and shook his head. "But it's... it's too much of a coincidence," Jon said, desperate and harsh, his voice run even more ragged with it. "Metaphysical binding? That doesn't just _happen_."

"Well, put a pin in it, then," Martin said, and his tongue felt thick in his mouth. His head was too busy reeling and hurting to really grasp how he was even supposed to react. "I still don't... I don't get what that's supposed to mean for me, for you?" He didn't like how suddenly Jon had pulled away. How he was putting as much distance between them as he could right now. Martin didn't mean for his voice to tremble, and yet: "I mean... is it a _bad_ thing?"

Jon's chest wasn't heaving near as much, but there was something dark in his eyes. "I don't know," he said, slow, and his face twitched with upset. His good hand clutched at the pillows beneath him like a lifeline, and his voice was miserable. "I just... I didn't want to drag you even deeper into this."

"Jon, _stop_ ," Martin said, and the words spilled out hot, because he'd just about had it with this misplaced blame. Martin had made his own decisions, every step of the way, and Jon didn't get to take that away just to fuel his guilt trip. "You didn't drag me into anything. I _chose_ to be here, with you. Okay? _I_ chose that. And if-- if rescuing you from that ritual and stopping the end of the world means being bound to you, then fine. There are worse things than some kind of... weird supernatural marriage."

Jon choked on nothing and shot Martin a look that was almost indignant. He wasn't pressed so hard against the headboard anymore, as his shoulders relaxed, but his eyes flicked down, studying the bedspread without seeing it. It took him a few moments to speak, his thoughts clearly turbulent, until he cleared his throat, finally. "The Lightless Flame believed that any harm that came to Gertrude would mean catastrophe for Agnes. I don't know if that was true, but--"

"We'll just have to be extra careful, then," Martin said, matter-of-fact.

Jon released a disbelieving huff. "How are you just... _okay_ with this?"

"Because," Martin said, " _I love you_." Maybe it was strange, that some of his uncertain worries had simply fallen away, especially considering that Jon seemed at a loss as to what it would actually mean for them. But Martin had an answer now, and it was the last thing he'd expected, and yet... all told, he'd been expecting something a little worse. This... at least it was something that Martin had _done_ , not something that had snuck up on him. "And honestly? I'm getting a bit offended. I mean, if being bound to me is such a turn off, you could just say so."

It shocked the smallest, breathiest hint of a laugh out of Jon, but it seemed that even Martin's words couldn't quite clear whatever wall that had slammed down around Jon. Jon's face darkened again, and his undamaged hand picked at the bedspread. Martin only spent a moment wondering if what was really eating away at Jon would ever come up, because: "The assistants," Jon said, a quiet, hoarse, ringing admission. "You're all, ah... already tied to me. Not to the Institute. To the Archivist." His face was pained. Guilty. "I... figured it out last night. That my death would've..."

Martin's breath caught, and he saw Jon flinch with it, and it only made Martin's head pound even more.

"Whatever happened to _us_ is... different," Jon added. "Deeper, but," bitterness coated his voice, "I suppose the groundwork was already there."

It dredged up something that had been eating away at Martin too, ever since Jon had laid out his oh-so-brilliant plan, and he didn't like the look on Jon's face, then. "You were," Martin said, and he had to stop and swallow, "you were so gung-ho about drawing the Hunt to you, and you _know_ what Hunters are capable of, and I just, I need you to be honest, okay? Were you trying to get yourself killed?"

"No," Jon said, surprisingly quick in his firm answer, and there was no lie in it. "I... I don't know what to do about... this, but... I wouldn't do that to you."

Something caught tight, at the back of Martin's throat. "And what if I want you to stay alive for _you_?"

Jon's face got so soft and fond, then, in a way that always drove Martin to complete distraction. "It is for me," Jon said, and at last, something in him unwound, and his undamaged hand returned to seeking out contact. Martin leaned into at once, and Jon's hand ghosted aimlessly across Martin's cheek, as Martin crawled forward. "If I was dead, I wouldn't get to see this beautiful face every day."

Martin sighed, fighting to keep the edges of his mouth under control, but there was no corralling the heat in his face. "Can you _please_ be serious?"

"I'm always serious," Jon said, very grave, mouth twitching up in turn.

Martin stopped when he was hovering over Jon once more, and he stayed there, so that they were maintaining eye contact, so that Jon was forced to reckon with him. Jon pressed back into the pillows ever so slightly, but he wasn't shrinking away anymore. "At the very least," Martin said, "you could've, I don't know, _proposed_ first."

Jon choked on air again, as it rushed out of him in something close to a shaky laugh, and his undamaged hand pushed half-heartedly at Martin's shoulder. "It is _not_ a _marriage_ ," he said. " _You_ be serious."

"I am," Martin said, in his best lofty imitation of Jon's voice, and okay, maybe his head wound was making him a bit delirious. "I expect some vows eventually. Good ones. Stanzas, even."

"Shut _up_ , Martin," Jon said, his hand pulling Martin in this time, and he leaned up to meet Martin's lips with his own.

Martin kissed him carefully, because Jon was still favoring his right side like the hand was giving him extra trouble today. There was no time to dwell on any sinister implications of that: Martin _knew_ that it was only because Jon had been handling the injury so indelicately lately. The tape recorder whirred softly, somewhere beyond them, and Jon was always a little more hungry than Martin would have expected of him, impatiently pulling Martin in closer.

When Jon broke for air, Martin blinked, dizzy and not from the bruise on his head. "Was that, um..." he said, "was that a yes?"

"You're not going to let this inappropriate metaphor go, are you?" Jon sighed.

Martin studied him and couldn't find anything particularly hard or resistant in the lines of Jon's face. "Does it bother you?" Martin asked anyway.

Jon considered it, a thoughtful furrow between his eyes. "No," he said simply. "So... it was. A yes, I mean."

"Good," Martin said. "Me too."

He didn't know who broke into a laugh first, but it happened all at once, and Martin found himself tucked up against Jon's side as he had been earlier, except he wasn't crying this time. It still made his eyes sting, a kind of laughter that expelled a poison with it, that hurt, just a bit, but left him feeling lighter too -- not least because it was so rare to hear Jon laugh like _this_ , unguarded, strangely happy. Martin had only just let it taper off when Jon asked, "Do you suppose the Eye is ordained?" and they dissolved into a fit again.

Silence fell eventually, into which the tape recorder whirred, but it wasn't heavy with any presence except theirs. Martin let himself bask in the feel of Jon beneath him, head pillowed on Jon's shoulder, but even the comfort of the moment and the golden light through the window couldn't entirely banish all that hovered over them still. Martin's head still ached, and Jon still held his right arm stiffly, and they still didn't really know what being _bound_ meant.

"Whatever it is," Martin said, quiet, trailing a hand over a few of the round scars on Jon's arm around him, "if it's Web or whatever... we'll figure it out."

"Yes," Jon said, and though it had a melancholy tint to it, he didn't sound entirely uncertain either. "I suppose we will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Mention of suicide.
> 
> You don't even know how difficult it's been to sit on these terrible puns: One could say that Martin has been eye-radiated. That he caught a dose of radi-eye-tion.
> 
> "JonMartin soul bond via botched ritual like GertrudeAgnes" is one of the pillars of this fic, in that I went looking for that very concept and couldn't find anything (though it may be out there, idk), and I was like "oh, I have GOT to inhabit that niche right now immediately." The concept has haunted me ever since it crossed my mind, and thus, hundreds of thousands of words about it, plus the other pillars: entity multiclassing, abstracting my issues with my physical form onto Fisher King Jon, and a dash of Death Prophet Georgie for flavor.
> 
> Because at last, we have arrived at the Point of this fic.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.

Basira had requested a single-bed room for herself, and she didn't know if it was because she'd been trying to manage her expectations, regarding the feasibility of returning with Daisy in tow, or because she'd assumed that Daisy wouldn't mind the arrangement. Now, as she followed Daisy inside, Basira was nearly rooted to the ground with a thorny uncertainty. It took her a few moments to remember to turn on a light, a soft glow to drive away the near-pitch dark, and she didn't miss how Daisy didn't even bother.

Basira wondered if she could still see in the dark.

At the very least, Daisy was looking Basira in the eye and responding to what Basira said, which was better than the silent treatment that she was giving Jon. But Daisy seemed agitated, lost in her own head, sniffing out where Basira had put things with a familiarity that hurt, as Basira watched. She had clothes waiting for Daisy and extras of everything else, because she hadn't been managing her expectations very well, in the end, and Daisy pulled things out methodically, head angled away from Basira.

Basira stood in the middle of the room and folded her arms as she observed. The window beyond the curtain was black as ink, except for the faint orange glow flaring up from the bottom that spoke of streetlights below. The dim light of the lamp was enough to see that Daisy had less hunger lines to her. The clothes that Basira had brought wouldn't hang off of her. It shouldn't have been such a relief, when that came with the price of blood. It was anyway, and the only difference now was that Basira found herself stewing guiltily in it.

"Well?" Basira said eventually. "You done with your tantrum?"

Daisy stiffened with a toothbrush in hand. She'd probably be in a better headspace when she wasn't so grimy, when she didn't smell like days-old dirt and sweat. But Basira was exhausted and out of patience, and she'd just wanted Daisy back, and once again, Daisy had to go and make it difficult. Which wasn't a fair or nice thought, not at all, but it crossed Basira's mind regardless. She wanted to kick herself for it, but she merely stood there expectantly, waiting.

"Thanks for the welcome back," Daisy muttered, rummaging in one of Basira's bags.

Maybe Basira had been expecting more of a fight. Waiting for it, even. She bit her lip. "Are you mad at me?"

Daisy froze again, toothpaste added to her hand, and this time, she got to her feet, slow and stiff. "No," she said, her voice a little softer, though there was still something in it that sat uneasily in Basira's ears, something that she couldn't identify.

Daisy was caught up in some internal battle, but she wasn't going to lay it out easily. Which wasn't like Daisy at all. If there was one thing that had been a constant with her, it was that you always knew where you stood with Daisy. How she really felt. She rarely ever made a secret of anything, and Basira was almost always able to read her, and now...

"Are you mad at Jon?" Basira asked.

"No," Daisy said again, draping clothes over her arm and turning. "I'm gonna take a shower."

Basira moved, sidestepping into Daisy's path, and Daisy pulled up short. Her eyes still didn't seem quite right, as Basira met her gaze, though it wasn't necessarily in how they looked. "You need to know some things first," Basira said, when she meant to say something like _I'm sorry_ instead. Debriefing came easier, though, like reflex.

"I know about the ritual," Daisy said, her voice low, her tone acid. "Felt it. Knew it, somehow." Her lips curled back briefly, her eyes somewhere beyond Basira, distant and bitter. "My handiwork."

"Daisy," Basira said, softer this time. "You didn't--" No, Daisy would only get upset, if she put it like that, and it wasn't quite true, was it? She'd known what she was doing. And so had Basira. "You were influenced. And I-- I should have stepped in long before that."

"Don't make excuses for me," Daisy snapped, and she pushed past Basira, heading for the toilet. "Fill me in later."

Basira probably should have gotten something a little more substantial done, while she waited. Instead, she flipped through a few books that she had and found them unbearably dull. She rifled through her things, and made sure that Daisy had enough of the essentials, and made a note of what they might need soon. She sat on the bed and sighed to herself, which was pathetic, but at least there was no one around to see. Except, perhaps, the Eye, but she didn't think it really cared either way, and neither did she.

She didn't want to admit how put out she was, how uncomfortable it was to sit here with no clear idea of what was going on in Daisy's head. How much it unnerved her, how much she still relied on that certainty that Daisy had once brought with her. Except it was gone, and it wasn't even Basira who had truly loosened the Hunt's hold on her. She'd just pointed Daisy in the direction of a monster again and justified it with the fact that it was to protect the others. She'd just asked Daisy to keep on being a monster.

Basira didn't know what to do, didn't know what was right. The knowledge stung, after years spent convincing herself that she had it figured out.

But... Martin was alive, and that was something. There'd been a moment in which Basira had hesitated for too long, and if Daisy had possessed any less self-control, she might have torn Jon's throat out. But she hadn't, and even though that moment would no doubt haunt Basira's thoughts for a while yet, she'd been ready to pull the trigger afterwards. She'd known that the connection between her and Daisy would have allowed the bullet to find its mark. So Basira had shut down every feeling and gone on autopilot, and it hadn't felt _good_ , but it had felt... steady. Steadier than a lot of things, lately.

Maybe Basira needed to settle for more straightforward things right now. Not taking out monsters because it was right or wrong or justified or not, not because it gave her any clarity or justice or not, not because it felt good or bad, but because Martin was alive, and Jon was alive, and the world hadn't ended yet.

"Hey," Daisy said, and Basira jumped, unread book slipping out of her hands.

She scooped it up with a sigh and stood, and Daisy watched silently, her skin no longer covered in muck and blood, her hair free of its matted ponytail and clean now, her eyes not quite shining in the dim light. She looked a little more human, but Basira could feel it, something else that lay somewhere beneath Daisy's skin, something that wasn't quite chase and wasn't quite sight. Perhaps it was that, confounding Basira's ability to read Daisy, turning Daisy's usual bluntness into a bristling shield behind which she hid.

Basira didn't know what she felt about being able to _sense_ that kind of thing, either.

"There's a lot to talk about," Basira said, because if Daisy wasn't going to, then Basira would. She didn't know what else to do, and she set the book aside and squared her shoulders as she faced Daisy. "But... I'm sorry. For what it's worth. So I'm gonna ask you again, now that things are quiet." She paused. Braced herself. "Do you _want_ to... keep using your abilities to help us?"

Daisy shifted on her feet, her eyes flicking away. It reminded Basira of a skittish animal, and she didn't care for it, when the thought crossed her mind. "Dunno."

For a moment, Basira wondered if that would be the end of it. But Daisy seemed to wither a bit, under Basira's steady gaze, shifting some more.

"No?" Daisy continued. "But..." She scoffed, and her arms came up, to wrap around her stomach, a move that made her seem abruptly more human. "You were right. If I got you to kill me right now, it wouldn't be for-- for you, or Jon, or anyone. It'd be for me, and... it'd just be so that I didn't have to keep feeling it, fighting it." She took a steadying breath. "And I think... I owe Jon more than that."

Basira didn't want to relax with the words, didn't want to feel a little more steady at her core, but old habits were hard to break, and it was easier to know where she stood, when Daisy did. She waited a moment longer, but it seemed about as forthcoming as Daisy was willing to be, right now. "You can't keep avoiding him," Basira said.

Daisy's face darkened. "M'not," she muttered convincingly, and now she was definitely looking anywhere but Basira. "I just... it's..."

Basira couldn't figure it out, what was going on in Daisy's head, only that it was a lot, and that it made her retreat into a stony silence that wasn't like her. Daisy felt guilty, that was for sure, but beyond that... "Okay," Basira said. The least she could do was give Daisy some space to wrangle with it, and maybe in time, she'd feel comfortable enough with one of them to open up. "We can argue about it later. I need to catch you up on everything."

Debriefing was easier, maybe, but even though it felt like a retreat, it wasn't what left Basira's mouth, after Daisy nodded.

"What does it feel like?" Basira asked, despite herself, and Daisy frowned. "The, uh... whatever Jon did."

Daisy stilled, and with it came the fleeting sense of something preparing to strike. But Daisy only shrugged, after a moment. "Felt a bit easier, you know?" she said. "After I signed on with the Institute. Like it was running enough interference to help me think past all of the hunger. Think that's why I liked listening to the statements, sometimes. Now..." her gaze grew distant again, "dunno. Loud."

Basira waited once more, but that was as much as she'd get, apparently. "Right," she said. Loud. She could sense that too, she supposed. The whispers of a delicate balance somewhere within Daisy, and to be fair, Basira had a hard time describing it too. She just knew it was there, a rubber band poised to snap, a seesaw poised to tilt. She set her curiosity aside and tried for something she sorely needed to do more of. What she should have been doing all along, after the coffin. "If... you ever want to talk about it..."

Daisy shook her head.

Well... it was a start, at least. "So," Basira said, taking a breath and readjusting, setting aside her tangle of feelings and her uncertainty, "feels like nothing's happened and everything's happened, since we split."

But as they settled on the edge of the bed, shoulders pressed together, and as Basira laid out the terrible truth as clinically as she could, she couldn't help but feel that her words clouded Daisy's head even more, leaving dark and troubled shadows etched into Daisy's face, ones that Basira didn't know how to clear.

* * *

Georgie found Melanie in the sitting room, early the next morning.

She finished slicing up the banana bread and set the knife aside, but she didn't carry the plates into the room with her. She laid them out on the table and brought along only two steaming mugs of fresh coffee as she stepped through the doorway from kitchen to sitting room, and then she came to a full stop.

The Admiral had taken such a liking to Melanie that it occasionally gave rise to unbearably teenage thoughts about _the one_ and all. Though Georgie tried to keep things practical, most of the time, there was something so nice and domestic about the sight that she was caught and frozen by a seizing of her chest that was not at all painful. The cat lay content and asleep in Melanie's lap, unbothered by her fingers in his fur, while Melanie frowned down at the ground, a spectacularly deep furrow between her eyes.

The scarring in and around those eyes was starkly visible in the faint morning light, free of bandages and reddened and puffy in the manner of wounds not quite healed over. Georgie blinked and saw red again, pouring from holes and lacerations, filling up the hollow parts of her mind, and she gave herself a shake as she stepped forward. No, she told herself, firm, calm. Nothing like that would happen to Melanie.

"You know," Georgie said, carrying two mugs over to the sofa, "the whole 'letting it breathe' thing is a myth."

"I _know_ ," Melanie said, waspish. Clearly not in the mood, then. "I just needed them off for a bit." She took her mug without protest, however, when Georgie handed it over.

Georgie took a seat beside her on the sofa, not quite close enough to touch, though she made her intention clear and then reached over and rubbed the Admiral's head. Melanie didn't take it as any kind of invitation, and so Georgie pulled her arm back. She hesitated, for a few seconds that felt far too long, until she ventured forth with, "You ready to talk?"

"I don't know," Melanie said. She stared ahead now, at the television that she couldn't see, the volume of which had been turned down to a murmur. She had a habit of putting it on when upset or rattled: background noise, control over the soundscape. "Are _you_?"

Georgie sighed and stared down at her mug, at the steaming coffee within. The contents of her dreams had become markedly easier to remember, these past several days, but they were a little more distant, in the waking hours. Easy to push to some back corner of her mind, into the numb and hollow parts, as long as she was occupied with something else. "Sure," Georgie said anyway, because Melanie hadn't let go of the topic, with all of the tenacity of a crocodile's jaws, and it seemed that she'd been more right than wrong. Georgie leaned forward and set her mug on the coffee table, because her stomach wasn't really in the mood for anything right now. "But... you seem to be taking this a lot harder than me."

"Well, what do you _expect_?" Melanie snapped, sudden and loud and vehement, and then her shoulders drooped. The Admiral twitched in her lap, eyes peeling open, but he settled under her apologetic fingers. "Sorry. I'm..." She sighed, vexed and unhappy.

"It's okay to be upset," Georgie said.

Melanie's mouth pulled into a thin line, and the groove between her eyes deepened even more. Her hand was wrapped tight around her mug, and the coffee within sloshed gently as she trembled. She was wrestling with something, clearly, and once, she might have found some way to bury it, and Georgie would have had to spend time digging it up, if that was even possible.

Now, however: "I abandoned them," Melanie said, quick and spilling like a dam had burst somewhere behind the words.

"You did _not_ ," Georgie said at once.

"I just _left_ ," Melanie said miserably.

"You _told_ me, you thought it was over," Georgie reminded her. "There weren't supposed to _be_ any more of these ritual things for a good long while. Right?"

Melanie shook her head in that stubborn way of hers. "All except the _Eye_ ," she said, pitch rising with every word, bitter with newfound knowledge. "And I helped it!" She swallowed, and her face twisted with disgust, and the Admiral stirred, grumpy, and slunk over to Georgie's side of the sofa. Melanie hardly seemed to notice, caught up as she was. "I helped that piece of shit Elias! I _attacked_ Jon! I--"

"You were sick," Georgie said firmly, letting the Admiral rub his back up against her outstretched hand. She kept her voice as patient as she could manage. "And you worked to get better, and you-- look what you had to do just to leave. You have every right to walk away from a situation like that."

Melanie went quiet, then, and Georgie knew, suddenly, that it had been the wrong thing to say. Melanie's head dipped down, her hair obscuring part of her face "So that's alright, then," she said, flat and far too steady. Like the vanishing of waves just before a tsunami came roaring in. "That's fine. Turning a blind eye," Melanie laughed, high and bitter, and it seemed to release some of the tension coiling through her, leaving behind only a deflated kind of unhappiness, "when I know something is wrong. Fuck you, got mine, right?"

Something flooded cold and uncomfortable through Georgie, ringing in her ears. She tried not to slip into annoyance, tried to understand where Melanie was coming from, but it was tiresome, having everything she said twisted away from what was intended. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Nope," Melanie agreed. "But it's what it comes down to, isn't it? I help to-- to kickstart the apocalypse, and then I get to not give a shit."

Georgie's ears rang even louder, hammered by frustration. It seemed to bubble just under the surface these days, waiting for an opening, and she wasn't always quick enough to slam a lid down over it. "And just how do you think you could help, huh?" Georgie demanded, before she could stop herself. "You're _blind_ , Melanie."

She sucked in a breath, reeling, as Melanie stiffened and the Admiral leapt off of the sofa in bristling disgruntlement, fleeing from her volume and disappearing into parts of the flat unknown. Georgie's heart pounded somewhere in the region of her ears, anger giving way to mortification. What the hell?

"I--" Georgie said faintly and swallowed. Her words emerged disbelieving. "God. That was a completely dickish thing to say."

"Yeah," Melanie agreed, a little shakily.

Georgie waited for something a little more explosive to follow, because at this point, it would be deserved, but the tension didn't snap. Melanie only remained where she was, silent, legs curled and coffee cooling in hand. "I'm sorry," Georgie said, and now she was quiet, barely more than a whisper. She didn't even know what had possessed her to say something like that, and she spoke carefully, like something else unwanted might come spilling out of her mouth. "I... don't know what's wrong with me."

"Yeah," Melanie said again, only a little irritable. "Because you won't _talk_ about it."

Georgie sighed. She dropped her forehead to rest against the tips of her fingers and let herself close her eyes. Behind them, she saw the dissection room. Felt the current that wasn't a current. "I don't know," she said, and she didn't mean to sound so defeated. "I've just been... so frustrated and, and angry lately, and I feel it? In my dreams? Even before..." Before a man had come to her home to tell her that her dreams would only get worse. What could be worse than feeling that _thing_ every night, than watching Jon endlessly bleed out over and over and over again? "I... I wanted to _kill_ him. Oliver or Antonio or whatever his name is. I don't know what came over me. He just made me so... _angry_."

"Jesus," Melanie said, but not in a particularly judgmental way. "Maybe your mind's just... compensating?"

Georgie lifted her head and glanced over quizzically, but she didn't have to voice it.

"I mean," Melanie clarified, "if you don't have fear to protect you, then anger's the next best thing, yeah? Keeps you on your toes." She huffed wryly. "I would know."

Georgie's gaze moved back to the coffee table and landed on the mug. "Maybe," she said. She reached forward to pick the mug back up and took a warm sip. She didn't particularly _want_ to be angry, and coffee would certainly be of no help there. But maybe she needed to be, if something was wrong. If something was going to _happen_ , despite her best efforts, but that was such _bullshit_ , and Georgie had to take a moment to breathe past her frustration. She set the mug back down. "I just... I want you to be safe. And this... this world that the Institute is a part of? It _isn't_ safe."

"It's a lot more than the Institute," Melanie said. "I mean, it wasn't what got you, and... Elias told me that..." her voice wavered, and she swallowed so hard it looked like she was about to throw up, "that something else killed my dad."

Georgie stared at her, the words stinging like a slap to the face, as Melanie gazed rigidly out at nothing. " _What?_ " Georgie asked, soft, disbelieving, shifting to better face Melanie, who kept her head pointed steadfastly in the general direction of the TV. How long had Melanie been sitting on that by herself? "Oh... Melanie, I--"

"I didn't tell you because I don't want to talk about it," Melanie said, short, and then she added a very begrudging, "Yet. The point is that... it would still be _out there_ even if the Institute wasn't a thing, and... I don't think anything is safe?" She let out a heavy breath. "It doesn't _care_ who or what you are, or whether you... stabbed your eyes with an awl or not. I guess it doesn't even care whether you can feel fear or not."

At last, she moved, setting her mug down on the table and turning her head in Georgie's direction. Georgie immediately clasped Melanie's outstretched hands between her own, as Melanie adjusted her legs into a more comfortable position, brushing up against Georgie's. Melanie held on to her fiercely.

"It's just," Melanie finished, "we could spend all damn day debating whether anyone has a right to turn their back on suffering, but... I think the decision's out of our hands, yeah?"

Once identified and named, it wasn't so hard to notice, the way frustration rose up immediately and coated the back of Georgie's throat, carrying a kneejerk protest, a disbelief that Melanie would just give in so easily. Georgie took a breath and didn't let it rush out of her, but her voice still emerged hard. "So... what? That's all? We just _accept_ it, then?"

"Do you think your dreams are gonna go away?" Melanie countered, immediate and harder, but the manner in which she cradled Georgie's hands was gentle.

Georgie didn't answer. She went to, and it died in her throat, because no words came to mind despite her every effort to rouse them. Like they couldn't get past the visions that lingered behind her eyelids. The blood and the room and the current and the feelings within, growing steadily every night.

Melanie managed to look supremely knowing around her vacant and scarred stare. "I'm gonna call Jon," she said, and she kept on going before Georgie could do much more than reflexively squeeze her hands in protest. "I need to. And... I'll ask him what he thinks about this. Because honestly, I don't know what to do, and it's scaring the shit out of me, and maybe _I_ want _you_ to be safe. Ever thought about that?"

No. Georgie hadn't, she realized, with a sinking of her stomach. She'd spent so much time fretting over Melanie that perhaps she'd circled back around to making it about herself.

"Let me protect you, for once," Melanie added. "Okay?"

An automatic chorus of protests rose up, ready to launch themselves out of Georgie's throat: that Melanie shouldn't _have_ to, that engaging with whatever this was would only open the door for more. But Georgie didn't give voice to it. She had a feeling that she might damage something precious with Melanie, if she tried to, something that couldn't be fixed with a simple apology.

She didn't know if it was the right decision. She couldn't know, because she couldn't even gauge how much of a threat it really was. But maybe she just had to trust in Melanie's instincts, instead. Let her pick up the slack, where Georgie lacked.

Georgie sat there for a moment, hands entangled with Melanie's, deliberating, until she gave in with a sigh. "I'm going to plant a kiss on your forehead," she announced, which she figured would count as acquiescence, but as she leaned in to do so, Melanie shifted and went for Georgie's mouth. She misjudged the angle, and they ended up knocking faces together in a way that left them laughing, but Georgie adjusted the angle for Melanie, the second time.

Georgie went for it nice and slow, mindful of the exposed scarring that wasn't quite done healing. Melanie, meanwhile, went for it like she had a dire need to pour a month's worth of affection into a single kiss.

"Miss King," Georgie murmured, pulling away and swallowing a chuckle as Melanie followed her. "It's six in the morning." Melanie shrugged, and Georgie added, "Our _son_ is probably watching."

"At six in the morning?" Melanie asked, incredulous. "That lazy bag of bones?"

"You know how he gets," Georgie said, and true to form, as if her words rang with prophecy, something both soft and sharp attacked Georgie's lap within moments, before moving on to Melanie's. The Admiral was often quite tetchy about displays of affection in his presence, meaning that he had to be present and in the center before he would allow them to continue.

"It's okay, little man," Melanie said, and her hands left Georgie to curl around the Admiral, a sight which never failed to put outlandishly domestic thoughts in Georgie's head. "You know I like you more."

Georgie scoffed and reluctantly pulled away, getting to her feet and carrying her coffee up with her. She stared down at Melanie and the Admiral for a moment, something like a lump in her throat, and an uncomfortable weight rested in the hollow parts of her skull. "I'm... going to get ready," she said, and god, why couldn't she just _say_ that she didn't want to linger if Melanie made any phone calls soon? "Breakfast is in the kitchen, when you want it."

She had plenty of excuses today, at least. An interview with a so-called witness in the morning, for podcast purposes, and then a job interview in the afternoon too. Now that Melanie was living with her, and now that they had a disability to account for, they needed a better income. And until Melanie was back on her feet and a little more adjusted, that sort of thing would fall on Georgie.

Maybe that was making Melanie antsy, too.

Melanie seemed to understand, even with Georgie's inability to get the words out. She offered a little nod. "I'll let you know if I need anything," Melanie said, and Georgie chose to trust that, as she retreated to the bedroom to get ready for the day.

* * *

It was a little later in the morning than Basira would have liked, when Jon and Martin finally decided to show themselves, but Basira mastered her impatience and decided to allow it. They looked better, when she opened the door, although a quick, pained exchange of glances with Jon told her that Martin was still very much anti-clinic, even though the bruise layering the side of his head was still markedly visible.

Well... if he wanted to risk becoming a liability later, that was his problem. Basira let them in and shut the door behind them, and Martin, who had a large stack of books tucked precariously under an arm, wasted no time in trying to thaw the noticeably chilly air of the room.

"Hi, Daisy?" he said, tentative.

Daisy was bent over Basira's phone, studying a map as she lounged at the edge of the bed. Something grew strained in the lines of her face, but she lifted her eyes. "Hey."

Martin brightened somewhat, and so did Jon, but Basira watched, mouth set in a grim line, as Daisy's eyes traveled to Jon. As she stood, and her eyes locked on his neck, and something hard and drawn etched itself into her face. She didn't look at him any more directly than that, and Basira was struck with the sudden and strange sense that she was scared.

"Daisy," Jon said, hopeful, stepping forward.

"I'm going for a walk," Daisy said, brusque, stepping past.

Jon's face fell, but he didn't retreat, this time. He strode forward and caught her arm with his good hand, face set and determined. "Daisy," he said again, hoarsely, a little desperately, and Basira saw him swallow something down, felt the edges of the air fizzle with something that faded away. "Just... talk to me, _please_ ," he said, as Daisy tried to yank herself away, and he held fast. "Tell me what's wrong. I--"

Daisy yanked again, her hand shooting out to shove him off and catching him in the shoulder. Basira didn't think that Daisy meant to do it, but the force of it sent Jon stumbling back, staggering into one of the decorative end tables. Martin sprang into action, hefting the books under his arm and hurrying forward with a noise of admonition, and Daisy faltered for a second, though she didn't stop.

Jon stared in shock. Daisy hesitated at the door, and though Basira couldn't see her face, she could imagine what played out there, before Daisy pushed through the door and was gone.

Jon kept staring, as Martin hovered at his side. "I'm sure she's just... having a bad time," Martin said, with a helpless glance at Basira.

"Yeah," Basira said, and it was almost noncommittal, before she remembered that she was trying to do better about this sort of thing. "She's... not upset with you," Basira added. "It's... more like she's upset with herself, I think, and she doesn't know how to handle it. Her head's a bit, uh... full right now."

Jon didn't respond to the words or to Martin's light touches, only gazed at the door for a few more long moments, before his shoulders slumped, before he took a step forward. "I'm going to the lounge," he muttered, not looking at either of them, and then he was gone too.

Martin stood there, visibly caught between impulses, jerking towards the door and then towards Basira a few times. He settled on stillness, finally, and it was his turn to stare at the door with a pained expression. He clearly _wanted_ to go after Jon, very badly, but something seemed to stop him. "You don't think he's going to take up day drinking, do you?" Martin asked, plaintive.

"Don't know," Basira said. It was a sorely tempting prospect, even though absolutely none of them should be spending any time getting drunk right now. "But I might."

At this, Martin turned and seemed to remember the stack of books tucked under his arm. He crossed the distance between them and offer the stack with a little flourish, that nearly sent it toppling out of his grip. "Here," he said, righting it.

Basira stared at the books: almost all paperbacks, some of them quite worn, and a spine that might have looked familiar. Something not unpleasant settled in her gut. "What's this?"

"Um," Martin said, "books? It's what we had at the cabin. Jon finished them all, and I remembered that we brought them, so, I don't know, I thought you might like them. Something to do, I guess."

"Thanks," Basira said, and she only realized it came out far too flat when Martin's face flickered and grew a tad more strained. She tried to accept the stack as gently as she could and set them down on the bed, and she paid attention to each title as she sorted through them. Yeah, there was Daisy's godawful taste, and then a mix of what was no doubt Jon and Martin's both.

She was busy trying to figure out which was which when Martin asked, "How are you doing?"

Basira stopped with a pulpy romance novel in hand -- Daisy's, easily -- and glanced up. "Fine," she said, automatic, and Martin's face fell even more, somewhere between sad and annoyed. Basira sighed, setting the book back down into the pile. She considered it, if only so that Martin would stop looking so goddamn mopey all over her room. "I... told myself that I wouldn't have expectations," Basira admitted, and she was surprised, when the words fell out easily enough. "When I found Daisy. Told myself that I'd fucked up, and that I was going to handle it better, this time. But..."

"But you had them anyway," Martin finished knowingly, quietly.

Basira heaved another sigh. "Yeah," she said. "I don't think I know what the right thing is anymore. If I ever knew. I didn't... I didn't bring her here because it would help our _quest_." They definitely needed a better word for it, at any rate. "I think... I just did it for me."

Martin gave her a pensive look, one that was oddly difficult to read, for someone who was usually pretty open. "Couldn't it be both?" When Basira frowned at him, Martin tripped a little over the words, but his voice was firm. "I think... it's normal to not want to lose someone, you know. And the fact that you're worried about what the right thing is... that means something. You could've just... done nothing, after the Unknowing."

"Would've been better if I had," Basira said, wry.

Martin gave her a tired look. "You only know that 'cause of hindsight," he said, rather exasperated. "Look, we're all in the same boat, okay? None of us knows what the right thing is. I..." He cut himself off with a dry scoff. "I'm not sure it even matters to me as much as it used to?" He winced at that, as Basira arched an eyebrow. "That... sounds bad, and I don't mean that I don't care, it's just... I think I'm kind of burned out on the whole 'oh no, I'm serving an evil power' thing. Like, it is what it is, you know?"

Basira considered this too, then leveled a pointed gaze at him. "And how are _you_ doing?"

Martin's hand strayed up to the side of his head, to the bruise there. "It's... not bad," he said, which sounded honest enough, even if there was a deflective air about it. "Head hurts, but it shouldn't need a checkup."

"I mean the other thing," Basira said.

"Oh," Martin said, a tad furtively, and he took a moment to mull it over. He almost looked thoughtful, when Basira had been expecting a little more... upset, maybe. He was certainly more focused than he had been last night, so maybe he wasn't entirely lying about his head, either. "Well. Jon did his seeing routine, and he said that..." Martin seemed to chew on the words, before they came out all at once, "me and him are bound together on a metaphysical level because I stopped the ritual."

Basira blinked and blinked again. She opened her mouth, then closed it. "Why am I surprised?" she asked, and it came out of her mouth as a genuine question. Just another weird development to add to the pile of them, after all. "And what the hell does that mean?"

Martin shrugged, looking entirely too calm about it. "He doesn't really know, so we're... still on the drawing board, with this one."

"With everything," Basira amended. Well... they'd all have a talk later and readdress the issue then. In the meantime, she and Martin could iron out some of the broader details, now that they actually had some key players lined up. At least until those players stopped brooding, and Basira took a moment to tame the urge to go after Daisy. Let her have some space, for a while. "But... about the Institute."

Martin perked up, and he sent one last glance in the door's direction, hesitant and clearly debating with himself over a similar thing, before he turned a definitive gaze back to Basira. "What did you have in mind?"

* * *

Jon didn't go to the lounge. He hadn't even lied about it, really. He had every intention of going, except there were too many people in there already, their heads full of swirling thoughts and experiences, and so Jon veered off and went to get some air instead. The familiar weight of a recorder rested in the pocket of a fresh coat not stained with his blood, and the unfamiliar press of Daisy's leather-sheathed knife weighed against his side, and he tried to focus on that, as he walked.

It wasn't quite enough to tune everything out. He was still hungry in a way that even he couldn't put words to. The aches in his hand and his throat were ever-present, as were the itches and stiffness across his skin and the other hurts that came and went. His shoulder in particular ached, where Daisy had shoved him. He knew that more than a few eyes flicked to him and to his scars, as he passed, and he knew that the man in the sedan had parked in the back because he worried incessantly about his affair being discovered, and he knew that a woman in one of the rooms above, who was only just stirring, had a statement ripe for the taking. The faint sound of music carried above it all, irritating and continual, like someone was blasting it very loud and very far away.

Jon didn't know what he'd hoped to achieve by getting air, because it certainly wasn't relaxing. His shoulder smarted, like Daisy had managed to dig phantom claws into it, and maybe his eyes stung too. Bitterly, he wondered what he had expected. For Daisy to remember that they were friends? To be _happy_ , that he'd turned the Eye on her?

And he couldn't make sense of the new impressions that had come to rest behind his eyes: the searing flashes of memory, words and cries that ripped themselves from his throat as the paper and his hand seethed with fire, and Martin's weight on top of him, the only thing keeping him from carrying out the end of the world, and Martin curled over him, like a shield, like a _target_ , and a sweeping, shuddering, impossible blink of an almighty gaze, and...

Jon couldn't make sense of it.

He threw all of his willpower into ignoring the statement above, and so he wasn't quite aware of walking around the back of the hotel, of arriving at an old warehouse that lay directly adjacent to it. It was much quieter here in this facsimile of a back alley, between the high brick wall that ran behind the hotel and the sections of the warehouse, though the faint rumble of music persisted. No people, either, which was something of a relief. Just a large blue garbage bin against the brick and the metal walls of a silent warehouse across from it.

Jon stopped and went for his pockets, automatic, before he dropped his hand with an irritated rush of breath. No-- Martin had his lighter and the cigarettes too, and Jon had _quit_. Christ, he needed an outlet. He'd managed more than a few, back at the cabin, but that had been mostly in the vein of things one could do out in the countryside, not a few minutes northeast of Manchester.

Well... he'd walked long enough that his eyes had stopped stinging, at least. As much as they could, anyway, when they were marked too, when they seemed to have settled into an uneasy strain, occasionally blurring the edges of his vision like a dizzy spell had come upon him. He wasn't keen on finding out what else would happen, should the Dark make any moves.

The music had not stopped, even though Jon couldn't hear any vehicles on the nearest roads anymore. Couldn't hear anything at all, actually, except for a faint beat, and something prickled up Jon's spine, when he noticed.

His shoulder ached, and it didn't feel right. Like Daisy's hand had never left, like she actually had managed to cut into him, even though that shouldn't have been possible. Like it hadn't been all that long since something sharp had sliced into the skin there. Since Melanie had...

Jon's heart pounded as his good hand scrabbled at his coat, yanking the zipper down and then tearing at his shirt, pulling it down as much as he could. The scar had been a whisper of a thing that had vanished soon enough, when he'd gotten it. Now a line marked his skin, bright red and beginning to ooze, and _shit_...

He went for the knife, unzipping his coat the rest of the way, and had barely made it to the sheath when a hand grabbed his arm.

Someone loomed in the corner of his vision, and Jon yanked himself away, pivoting to face the person. A man, a police officer, grinning at him, but Jon _knew_ what he was, and the music pulsed profoundly now, at once pounding in his ears and faint like a breeze, impossible to pin down to a source. Static was in his throat, rushing and ready as he backpedaled, and then another presence was at his back in a flash. A hand clamped over his mouth as he took a breath, yanking his head back with such force that he choked, and an arm encircled him and pinned him against a much bigger form as he flailed.

Jon's injured hand throbbed with the impact, and he could barely get a breath in, and he was vaguely aware of two other figures in the corners of his eyes, closing in. All four of them police, and there were walls on either side, brick and metal, and no one close enough to see or hear. Martin, Jon thought, nearly retching on it, on the hand around his mouth. Basira, Daisy, they were so close, and yet--

"Let's see what you've got," the first police officer said, swooping in with a sudden movement and yanking the sheath off of Jon's belt. He unbuckled it and pulled the blade out. "Flick knife? That's illegal, _Archivist_."

The officer's grin turned crooked. He popped the knife open with an abrupt, violent movement, centimeters from Jon's face, and Jon flinched. He dug his heels frantically into the asphalt, trying to gain enough traction to shove against the one who held him, but the grip on his mouth tightened so much that he froze, sucking in what air he could as his vision tilted. The music warped with it, too loud and too soft, pulsing in time with his pounding heart.

Another of the officers stepped forward. "Not to mention the complaints about suspicious people," he said. "The trespassing. The _murder_. Felt that, didn't we?"

"Right violent, it was," the fourth one agreed, and Jon shuddered when the officer pawed at his pockets, abrupt and rough. He withdrew a wallet and fished around inside. "And look at that! Driving around with an expired license."

"We're gonna have to take this one in," the first police officer said, leering at Jon as white-hot fear coursed through Jon's veins. The officer glanced around at the others, his voice shifting from a sneer to an order. " _Away_ from prying eyes."

The one holding Jon moved, shuffling backwards. Towards the warehouse and the first set of double doors set into the metal walls. And Jon knew that if they got him in there, he would not be coming back out intact, and neither would the world.

Jon bucked and writhed, and his shoulder hurt so much that he wanted to curl in on it, but the arms held him fast, and he couldn't even get them to budge, and oh god, not again, not again, not--

The music warped once more, as if cut straight through by something else. By a low buzz that scratched at the edges of Jon's hearing, that made his head tilt and his stomach turn with a swoop of motion sickness.

A soft, sharp _shing_ echoed against the metal walls of the warehouse, and the officer holding Jon jerked with a wet, choked cry. The grip on Jon's mouth and around his arms wavered, letting air in, and music pounded loud and glad in his ears, and in the split second before chaos broke, Jon was vaguely cognizant of the wide eyes of the other officers. Of what he could see through those eyes, with only a blink of his own, of the yellow door set innocuously into the silver metal of the larger double doors. Of the voice that spoke somewhere behind the man who held him, low and resonant and amused.

"Oops," Helen said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Slaughter-flavored police violence.
> 
> I don't specify what the Slaughter Music is, so imagine whatever Music That Makes You Go Apeshit that your heart desires, [but I was listening to this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83JOgbwYhu0).


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes.
> 
> Again, Slaughter Music is whatever you want it to be, but why don't you [listen to Santigold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83JOgbwYhu0) and maybe you'll calm down (or not).

The music pounded in time with Jon's heart, and he wrenched himself out of the arms that no longer held him fast. He turned on his heel, white hot fear bleeding into the shape of something else, something furious, and he didn't think, as the silver metal of the warehouse flashed blindingly in the morning light. He launched himself shoulder-first at the officer, who staggered off-balance as Helen yanked a sharp finger out of his back, and the world blurred. The air warped, and Jon's shoulder met flesh, and the officer went pinwheeling through Helen's open door.

Jon nearly did too, stumbling with the force of his momentum, with the pain that rocked through his arm and down to his injured hand, and he almost teetered past the threshold.

But something that wasn't the fingers of a distorted hand, that only looked like so, wrapped around him and caught him just before he tipped over. It looked and felt like a pull, as if to yank him back. But it was, fundamentally, a push, like the bear trap sprang back open, and its recoil contorted to propel Jon away from the door.

It hurt. Helen's fingers were substantial enough to carve into him, and Jon reeled as he pitched around. Pain on top of pain slanted his thoughts, colored them in red hot anger, but the other officers couldn't get close in time. A shimmering mirage of fingers that weren't fingers hovered between them and Jon, illusory sharp-edged twists of reality extended into a warning fan, and Jon shoved his good hand into his coat and grasped wildly for the recorder. He edged backwards, a breath or two from Helen's threshold, so close that the back of his foot brushed against it.

He didn't dare look up at her. Didn't know what he'd see, if he did, and he wasn't even sure where she _was_ , relative to him. _If_ she was, even.

"Who sent you?" Jon demanded, voice cracking with soreness, with static, and the rhythmic pounding of noise interfered, robbed the words of their impact, enough that the officers shuddered into stillness but did not answer. The recorder was already running, when Jon pulled it out, and his voice came harder, as he glared past the glittering bars of the hand that was not a hand. "Was it the Web? Annabelle Cane? Why are you here? _Who sent you?_ "

"No one," the first officer gasped out, the one with the flick knife. "Followed..." he grimaced, like the baring of teeth, but the words still came tumbling out, "followed the ripples. You've got," he staggered forward, raising the knife, "what we _want_."

Jon's voice held all three in thrall, but his shoulder ached, and the cuts from Helen bled, and his throat burned from the effort. Music rang loud and confusing, and he faltered while forming the shape of another question in his thoughts and in the back of his throat, and he saw the flash of a gun as one of the officers moved, and--

Another figure came into view, a shadow against the brick wall beyond, and the officer staggered, knees giving out, and Daisy's arms wrapped around his head and neck and _snapped_. The closest officer turned on her, enraged, and Jon didn't see them clash, because the first officer lunged forward, and the world blurred again.

Helen's fingers moved, and so did Jon, in time with sound that wasn't sound. The officer stumbled with a clatter of knife against pavement, not quite able to make it past the warping distortion of Helen's presence without losing focus, and Jon knew what to do, knew to drop the recorder, knew how to follow the curving of sound and the burning path of the gaze at his back. A simple dance of one and two and three and four, down past the officer's swinging punch and towards the knife on the ground, and then back up, one arm painfully deflecting the next strike and one hand taking advantage of the opening it created.

The knife plunged in smoothly, even though Jon wasn't left-handed and had never so much as taken a course in self-defense, even though the officer's heavy jacket should have resisted it, even though it was a relatively small blade. The knife plunged in smoothly, carried by that unidentifiable hunger within him that yearned for _more_ , by the ravenous presence at Jon's back. The knife plunged in, and Jon felt it carve through more than skin, as music sang sweetly beneath his skull.

He welcomed it, let it twist into being through him. He had to, so that he could _see_ , so that he could understand.

"Statement," Jon said, as the officer's shocked eyes locked onto him, "of Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, regarding..." Jon pushed the knife into the man's chest a little further, and the officer staggered back, "the Slaughter."

He was hungry. The morning light glared off of silver metal, and the yellow door behind him buzzed loud and disorienting, and two officers lay dead at Daisy's feet. Jon's shoulder throbbed with an echo of violence, and his throat hurt as he spoke, and music pulsed in time with it. Dozens upon dozens of sensations, making themselves known whether he wanted them to or not, little morsels of nothing that wouldn't sate anything. This would. He knew that. It would only carve that hollow pit of hunger deeper into him, too, but this was important. He didn't know why, yet.

He could try to find out.

"Followed the ripples of what?" Jon asked, and the officer sank to his knees, choking on air. Jon let the knife slip from between his fingers, but it remained lodged in the officer's chest, as Jon glared down at him. He was achingly aware of the buzzing behind him. Of Daisy watching him, immobile, eyes glittering. But the more Jon spoke, the further away it all seemed. "Pursuit? Murder? Wanton violence?" He scoffed. "I know your story already. Joined up with law enforcement and took advantage of the freedom it gave you to terrorize and intimidate and kill. You've always been chasing that, and your patron happened to provide."

The officer lashed out, and Jon stepped back. His feet moved against pavement, and with each step, he imagined that the sound rippled outward. Through the other presence now cloaking the back alley, through the music taking on a faint discordant note. Something began to take shape, in his thoughts. Something that was almost understanding, and he reached for it hungrily.

"But distinctions don't matter to your master, do they?" Jon asked, as the officer landed on his hands and then pushed himself up with a groan, turning hateful eyes back on Jon. "They matter to you. They're what you've wrapped yourself up in, what we've all clung to in order to make sense of what is senseless, and yet... you still heard it." The officer tried to take another step forward and stumbled, and all Jon had to do was take another step back. It was too easy to anticipate how the man would move, when the Eye beat down upon the alley like so and caught every microscopic movement in its gaze, and so there was no power left in it. "Heard the chase. Heard the death of an old man and a creature of the unknown. They had nothing to do with you, and you heard them all the same."

Who and what else had heard it? Jon looked and saw nothing. If there was an answer, it wasn't here, where the Slaughter had come to call. Where the soaring notes of violence turned sour, as Jon's gaze grew hungrier and hungrier.

The officer at last seemed to remember that he had other means of force at his disposal, and his hands scrabbled at his side, at the gun there. But Jon didn't need to react. Daisy was there in a flash, and the officer sprawled wheezing on his back as she cast him down. He didn't move again, under her baleful glare, under the sheer weight of the Eye's gaze bearing down upon the alley.

"What _are_ you?" Jon asked, and he wasn't speaking to the officer any longer. " _Answer me_."

The music warped, like a record screeching backwards. The notes were no longer harmonious, no longer in time with anything, and Jon's head ached with it, something metallic on his tongue. He gritted his teeth and stepped forward, and Daisy stepped back. Jon found himself crouched, with a hand on the knife still protruding from the officer's chest, and the officer jerked.

"Where does chase give way to you?" Jon asked. "Where does the fear of the unknown become the fear of the unpredictably violent? What," his fingers were tight around the knife, and he strained to _look_ , to _see_ , into and past the thing singing in his ears, " _are you?_ "

The music didn't answer. It left, shuddering and dissonant, so totally and completely that there was nothing to protect its incarnation from that which looked upon it. Jon couldn't have stopped the words from ripping the officer apart, couldn't have stopped the gaze at his back from swallowing the man up, even if he'd wanted to.

He didn't want to. He yanked the knife out, and the officer jerked again, with a shrill cry that cut off into nothing as the Eye refracted through Jon and drank its fill.

The silence that followed wasn't quiet, like the echoes of music persisted even in its absence. Jon listed to one side, under the weight of his aching shoulder, and his body trembled like he'd run for miles. He stared down at what was left of the dead man beneath him, and his ears rang hollowly, like he'd spent too long underwater.

He wasn't bleeding anymore, the cuts from sharp fingers already healed over, but chill air found its way in through the holes that had been ripped into his coat and shirt, and Jon shivered. "Statement ends," he managed, and a metallic aftertaste still lingered on his tongue and coated his sore throat. He didn't reach out for the discarded tape recorder. Instead, he kept the bloody knife tight in his good hand.

Someone was nearby, a hesitant press of footsteps upon pavement. "Jon?" Daisy asked, and the sound of it was wrong, too nervous, too uncertain. The sound still behind him was wrong, too, droning and disorienting, and it shouldn't have been there, and Jon pushed himself up to his feet and turned.

Helen stood just before her door, her form mostly human, except for her strange angles and her long folded arms. Except for the way that Jon could never quite settle on a full picture of her, without something slanting off into forms unrecognizable, without something hiding behind the twists and turns of thought that would not make sense no matter how hard he strained to know.

Helen's deep-set eyes were fixed on Jon, swirling with patterns that would drag him in, if he looked too long. "Had _that_ in you too, didn't you?" Helen mused, almost approving, and though the words were quiet, they rang out into the silence all the same.

But the echoes of music whirred louder in Jon's ears, and his hand shook around the knife. "What game are you playing?" he demanded, the words trembling too.

Though Helen's face was never quite right, the scorn that settled was plain and scathing. "Oh," she said, disdainful. "Did the poor little Archivist not get the answers he wanted?"

Jon took a step forward, and the echoes rang against the drone of her presence, and a static feedback built up between them, reverberating through the air and carrying a song not yet fully departed. "You," Jon spat out, "you let me be strung along. You let it happen. You _wanted_ it to happen. What-- what _agenda_ were you serving? Who the hell are you keeping me alive for?"

Helen stared at him and then laughed, suddenly, and it wasn't at all like discordant ring of the Distortion. It was harsh and bitter, and her arms were almost proportional, as she unfolded them and stepped forward in turn. "You are just so _desperate_ for that, aren't you?"

The ring of her voice was almost harmonious, instead of disorienting. She drew herself up to her full, looming height. She could have just been a very tall woman, taller than Jon, than Daisy. Even with her proportions nearly in order, it was frightening, when she towered and spoke with something else, with a pealing echo of fury.

"The agenda is really quite simple," Helen said, acidic. "I pick and choose my warnings." The words turned venomous, angry, in a way that Jon had never heard before. "You pick and choose your _monsters_." Her gaze, no longer so mismatched and riddled with patterns that were not patterns, flickered away from Jon, and Daisy's feet shuffled against the pavement. "It's _fair_."

Jon's chest heaved, and he couldn't _see_ , not when the echoes were too loud to think past, not when the angles of thought bent too much and too far, refusing to allow understanding. "Stop _lying_ to me," he said, and his uninjured fingers ached around the knife. Because someone, something was playing some sick game still, and he knew that now, and if he could just _see_ it, it wouldn't be able to come at him from parts unknown, it wouldn't be able to catch him at unawares. Why would she give them the Leitner they needed? Why would she save his life? "What do you _want?_ "

Static pushed through the echoes and the angles, too faint to compel but crackling enough to be felt, and Helen's face darkened. Like a chord snapping back into place, her eyes were mismatched again, her fingers too long and bulbous and sharp, and she loomed over them as she stalked forward a little further, a flickering projection of the hungry door behind her. "Try that again, Archivist," she said, resonant and sharp as a knife.

Jon had his knife and the film of static clinging to his throat, had angry echoes ringing between the walls of his mind, and Daisy moved closer into view, a twitch away from putting Jon behind her. But her hand on his arm was a warning. "Leave off," she murmured, like she was talking to him, not Helen.

Jon didn't want to. He wanted something, anything to make sense, and nothing about Helen made sense, nothing about the Spiral was _supposed_ to make sense, it twisted everything it came into contact with, including her, and--

His phone rang.

Martin had been appalled to hear the default tone on the way to Scotland, when Basira had called with a few last instructions, and never mind Jon's explanation that it was a cheap new phone, and he hadn't bothered trying to personalize it yet. It had been the first thing that had really seemed to rouse Martin from the haze of the Lonely, and so Jon had let him fiddle with the phone and replace the ringtone with something a little livelier. Some old video game ditty that Martin spoke fondly of being able to snag for cheap years ago, which segued into a discussion in which Jon tried very hard not to let his rusty driving skills become overwhelmed by the sound of Martin's voice, by the thrill of discussing something so mundane.

The phone rang out now, softer and sweeter than the lingering echoes in Jon's ears. He paused and looked down, slow and hazy as if waking from a dream, automatic in his movements. In order to pull his phone out of his coat, he had to let the knife slip out of his grip. It clattered to the ground, and when Jon had his phone in uninjured hand, he stared at the screen, surprise pounding a little louder in his ears than any echo.

He answered and couldn't quite get his voice past the echoes, as the ringtone faded.

"Hey, Jon," Melanie's voice said, hesitant. "It's me? I tried calling earlier, but I don't think it went through."

Something shifted, up ahead. Something in Helen's form wavered and fell back, and Jon's eyes snapped back up. Daisy's grip on his arm tightened, a convulsive movement that was too hard, too strong, that rocked down through his arm to the burn on his hand. Daisy released him at once, like dropping something hot, when he flinched. It left nothing holding him back, except a single and sudden thread of uncertainty tugging behind him.

"Jon?" Melanie asked into the silence. "Is... everything okay?"

Jon hardly heard the question over the echoes of music that wasn't music, over the unreal drone of Helen's presence. He didn't dare take his eyes from Helen. From the way she was looking at him now, like she was thinking about eating him too. He'd never quite seen that look on her face before, and he didn't know what was holding her back, either. But the air sang with it, coiled tension shot through it like cracks in glass.

"It's, ah," Jon said, and the words came only with great difficulty, but something wasn't right, didn't feel like it had when he'd shoved a knife into the officer, didn't feel _right_ , "it's... the Slaughter, it's, um... the anger..." But he wanted to scoop the knife back up, too. He wanted it in his hands again, and he didn't know how to stop wanting that. "How do you-- how..."

"What?" Melanie asked, with palpable alarm. "What's happening?"

"Slaughter," Daisy said, clipped, her voice just as strained. She hovered in front of Jon now, muscles tense and ready, and Jon blinked and saw the scene through her eyes too, momentarily, felt an alien kind of hungry and murderous longing behind his own, held back by the same thread. Was that why Helen hadn't made a move? Could Daisy kill her? Could Jon? Could Helen kill them? Jon couldn't stop thinking about it, speculating on it, wondering. "In him. Helen too. How do we get it out before they kill each other?"

"Daisy?" Melanie asked, shaky. " _Helen?_ I don't... I don't know, I'm not... really the best person to ask? I--" But she fell silent, a long stretch of nothing poised to snap, and then: "Okay," Melanie said, her voice hardening. "Listen up, arseholes. I don't know what's happening, but I do know know that you _want_ be angry with something, if it's not going away. And I know that you're not just going to let it go, so, Daisy, first of all, if there's something, anything that could be... contagious or whatever--"

Daisy moved, quick and sudden, and snatched the tape recorder up off of the ground. She hit the record button, and the whirring stopped, finally, and most of the echoes faded from Jon's ears, like that. He gasped softly, his knees shaking as a dozen sensations that had dulled in the face of the Slaughter's presence returned in full force, light and sound and itching and aching and knowing all flooding into his head like a deluge.

But Helen still glared at him, and Jon realized -- _knew_ \-- that he'd never seen her look at him with _hatred_ before. Not like this.

Daisy moved again, her back suddenly in Jon's view, as she put herself in front of him. "Be angry at me, then," she said calmly to Helen.

"No," Jon said, trying to push past her, though Daisy had more success in shoving him back. He made himself meet Helen's unnerving gaze, even though Daisy kept her arm in the way. "What did you mean, earlier?"

After a long moment, in which Jon wondered, for the first time, if she really wanted to hurt him after all, something shuddered through Helen, rather like a bracing sigh. She took a step back, or at least, she appeared to, although it was difficult to tell how and when her feet moved.

"Well!" Helen said finally, rather manic, and her eyes fluttered in a wildly mismatched pattern as she ignored the question. "That's the last time I eat such a _nasty_ meal for you."

She'd eaten one of the officers, Jon remembered with a jolt. One he'd pushed through. Was that--?

"Helen?" Melanie's voice said from the phone in his hand.

"I think I'm done here!" Helen said, already halfway through her door, but the glare wasn't entirely gone as she glanced back, a twisting of her neck that made Jon's stomach turn. "And Daisy, dear? How long do you think it'll last, before you're a little _too_ much of a monster, hmm?"

The yellow door slammed shut, so loud and sudden that Jon blinked, and when the warehouse came back into focus, it was gone.

This time, the silence didn't ring. No music echoed, no tape recorder whirred, no distorting presence hummed. The morning light glared off of the metal walls of the warehouse, bright and distracting in Jon's strained eyes, and he could hear the nearby roads again and knew when one of the passing vehicles carried a passenger with a statement, and he could still feel the woman in the hotel who had one, sitting at breakfast now.

He wondered, idly, if his range was growing.

"Uh," Melanie said, "what was that?"

Jon released the breath caught in his chest, and it hurt, coming out of his sore throat. "It's... nothing to worry about," he croaked, and he didn't miss how Daisy stepped away from him, how she wandered over to the bodies and frowned down at them, if it meant that she didn't have to look at him. She still had the tape recorder in hand, and she held onto it white-knuckled. "It's handled. You-- I appreciate hearing your voice, Melanie, but... why did you call?" He blinked, as concern spiked. "Are you alright?"

Melanie didn't answer right away, which didn't help the concern, until she said, small and subdued, "The ritual."

"What?" Jon asked blankly. "How did you--?"

"Helen told me," Melanie said bitterly, and Jon sighed. And then Melanie's voice got smaller. "Jon, I'm... I'm so sorry, I didn't--"

"No, don't--" Jon said, at the same time. "Don't worry about it."

Another long silence passed, in which Jon stood there with his head still reeling from the past hour, from the onslaught of sensation that the music had muffled, and Daisy stood there scuffing her feet next to the officers they'd killed. "Is it why you had a Slaughter problem on your hands just now?" Melanie asked, flat.

The soreness in Jon's shoulder wasn't as pronounced, but they had three dead bodies, and a fourth swallowed by Helen's corridors. Jon's hands shook with the memory of the knife entering flesh, with the memory of fury, and the burn ached, constant and wearying. "After a fashion," he said carefully. "But, Melanie, it isn't your fault. All of this is," he laughed, breathy and humorless, "so far beyond one thing you did when you could hardly think straight. I... don't even know where to begin. But... we're handling it, you don't need to--"

"Shut up," Melanie snapped, and Jon stared down at the phone. "We need to talk. Something... weird happened. I--" She stopped, abrupt and ringing, and before Jon could do much more than frown, she breathed out a reverent, " _Holy shit_ ," with the air of someone who had just cracked open a secret of the universe.

"Excuse me?" Jon asked, nonplussed.

"Hang on," Melanie said, rather fevered. "Hang on. I've gotta check on something. Call you back later."

And she hung up, just like that.

Jon blinked down at his phone for several moments longer, then slowly put it back into his coat.

He took a breath, and his vision pitched, and when it settled again, he was sat down on the pavement with Daisy holding him by the shoulders, like she'd eased him to the ground. Her too-strong grip made his scars there ache, reminded him of the sticky wet coating his left shoulder where the scar from Melanie had opened and oozed, but he didn't comment on it.

The tape recorder in Daisy's hand pressed against him, and Jon blinked down at it next. "May I--?" is all he managed to get out, but Daisy understood and handed it over, and Jon fumbled as he popped the recorder open.

He fumbled again with a hiss, when he reached for the tape inside and felt something slice his fingers.

Daisy snatched the recorder back and peered at the tape within. At its corners, now gleaming and sharp instead of rounded. She blinked down at it, stumped. "What the fuck."

"Yes, that's," Jon said, watching the little cuts on his fingers close over on themselves, "that's been happening." It was important, and he didn't know why, and he hadn't been able to see far enough into the Slaughter to understand. But he'd gotten a little more context and a tangible result, which now sat in Daisy's hands, and he eyed it, as hunger whined muffled and thick between his ears and stirred behind his itchy eyes. But slowly, reluctantly, he took the recorder back and closed it and stuffed it back into his coat. He'd get the tape out later, because right now...

Daisy's eyes were on the ground as she crouched next to him, nervous, unsure, twitchy like a flight risk.

"Help me up," Jon said, more to test it than anything.

Daisy hesitated, and Jon's patience cracked, and he couldn't take much more not knowing.

"Daisy," he snapped, and he didn't quite let compulsion coat his tongue, but he looked just closely enough to see the shadow of fear roiling beneath her thoughts. Something like understanding began to congeal at last. "What are you afraid of?"

She glared at the pavement, and her jaw twitched, and Jon thought that she was going to get up and storm off again. But Daisy took a shaky breath, and though she kept her eyes anywhere but him, a few words worked their way out. "You don't know what I wanted to _do_ ," she said, low and strained.

"I think I can guess," Jon said evenly. "I don't imagine any ritual completion of the Hunt's would be pleasant. But you didn't. You could have tried. You had an opening." He watched her, watched the unsteady way her eyes flicked this way and that, like a cornered animal. "Do you want to hurt me?"

Daisy shuddered out a pained, " _No._ But... it's _there_. In my head."

Jon swallowed around the thickness in his throat, the soreness there, and it took him a moment to speak. He knew very well what she could do, ritual or not. "I don't think you will," he said slowly. "I... hope that the Eye's influence may help to counter it, and I'm sorry that--"

"Don't you dare apologize to me, Sims," Daisy snapped, and then she sighed. She spent another moment glaring at the ground, before she lifted her eyes to meet Jon's at last. Her gaze slipped down, as if of its own accord. "Every time I look at it," she said, and Jon's throat twinged, as if in answer, "I _think_ about it. What I could have done. And... I _want_ to look at it. Hard to stop, really." She didn't stop now, her eyes on Jon's neck, but he didn't move. "I think... that's the Eye, now. It's... what you can do is useful, Jon, but... don't trust it."

 _Don't trust me,_ she didn't say, but Jon heard it anyway. He sighed, and his throat twinged again. "Every time I look at Martin," he said, hoarse, "I want to... pull things out of his head."

Out of other heads, too, but it was strange, with Martin, and more and more, and was that because of their so-called bond? But why would the Eye care, if it had both of them tangled up together like that? Why was it trying to look at Jon through Daisy now, too? Was it a function of wanting its ritual completed? Why hadn't it forced the issue yet? Was it something else, some other force at work? Was it even correct, to think about it in such definite terms?

Whatever it was, Martin trusted him, for some reason, and Jon had been forced to reevaluate how he approached the situation. How he thought about it, talked about it, because if the situation continued to get worse for Martin too...

Daisy's face grew a little more strained, and finally, she tore her eyes away from him. "How do you--" she began and had to start over. "How do you stop yourself?"

Jon thought about that and hefted the tape recorder, with the knife-sharp tape within. "Lately, I've been... redirecting it, I suppose," he said. It wasn't necessarily in a _good_ direction, and it was no doubt doing something to him, when the clawing hunger behind his eyes never actually seemed to abate no matter how many strange statements he took, but it was better than any alternative, and it was... important. "Finding other things to... satisfy the urge."

Daisy looked only at his hands. At the recorder there. "Some hobby," she said. "Ever tried books?"

Jon huffed. "The ones in your cabin were terrible. Just so you know."

"That's why I like them," Daisy said, but her fleeting smile fell away quickly, flooded out with a flash of guilt. "I'm sorry," she said, and her eyes were back on the ground. But Jon wouldn't mind if she never looked at him directly again, as long as she wasn't pulling away. "Harder to stop being frustrated, too. Easy to... let that think for me. But... I shouldn't have been ignoring you. Don't think it made any of it easier to ignore."

"What did you hope to achieve, then?" Jon asked mildly. "Aside from not having to _look_ , that is."

Daisy adopted a rather sheepish expression. "Guess I was hoping you'd write me off eventually," she said. "Make it easier on myself, if you hated me. Stupid, really. It's not your problem, and I should have known you wouldn't know how to quit on someone."

Jon tried to smile and failed, as something akin to motion sickness rolled through his stomach.

But Daisy's eyes were on the ground, and she didn't notice. "Basira made me realize some things," she continued. "About... the line between doing things for myself and for others. Told myself that I was killing _monsters_ for all of the stupid sheep who didn't know what was out there, but... I wasn't, not really." Her lips twisted in disgust, before something more pensive settled. "But," she jerked a hand in the direction of the bodies, "I just did that 'cause they were gonna hurt you. It didn't... it didn't feel _better_ , but... I didn't get lost in it. You're right about that. The Eye... helps me think. Helps me make sense of things in my head. Even if it's..." She fell silent and swallowed. "Anyway. I'm glad I was here to help, and not, you know. Dead."

Jon could imagine what lay at the end of that unfinished sentence, and it would have been so easy to look. To know, to drink it in, to dig deeper into Daisy's fear and examine its every facet. He took a breath and tightened his fingers around the recorder. "I know what I'm asking of you," he said quietly. To keep on killing, to keep on justifying it with something else, this time. "And I wouldn't think less of you, if you didn't want to."

But Daisy shook her head. "Nah," she said. "Think I'm fucked either way. Might only be a matter of time." She stopped and frowned. "I didn't mean..."

"It's fine," Jon said. "I'm... in the same boat, more or less."

Daisy considered that and then pushed herself up from her crouch. No longer did she move stiffly, like her joints were failing, like her strength was flagging. It was quick and easy, and fueled by two of the dead nearby, and Jon was too rattled to know what to feel or think. Too relieved to have avoided falling into anyone else's clutches. But it was thanks to Helen, too, and the knowledge sat heavy and uncomfortable in Jon's stomach.

"Not alone, though," Daisy said, soft, offering a hand.

"No," Jon agreed, letting her pull him to his feet. "Not alone." He wasn't so wobbly anymore, now that he'd had a chance to breathe. But the water-clogged whine between his ears wasn't entirely gone, and he was half-afraid that he'd hear the echo of something else in it, if he listened too closely. "No more swanning around then, I hope?"

Daisy grinned. "Maybe a bit," she said. "But only if we do it together."

"Sounds reasonable," Jon said. He pocketed the recorder, then scooped up the flick knife and grimaced at the officers. "What are we going to do about... them?" he asked, and he glanced down rather helplessly at the bloodstained blade until Daisy obligingly took it from him.

Daisy's eyes remained carefully fixed on the bodies the whole time. "I'll handle it. You run home to Martin. Here." Daisy shrugged off her coat and handed it to him, with a quick sideways glance. "You've got some, uh--"

Jon wrapped it around his own coat, covering the fresh spots of blood as best he could, though no wounds remained. Another gift from Helen, but only because of the nature of her hands that weren't hands. Because she hadn't let him cross her threshold. What did that mean? And what on earth had Melanie been on about?

"Congratulations, by the way," Daisy said, lifting Jon out of his thoughts. "Finally pulled him, huh?"

Jon adjusted the coat some more and was able to smile around the aches and the sensations, the knowing and the not knowing and the reedy whine in his head. "Ah," he said. "Yes. It's... it's been good."

Daisy smiled too and gave him another fleeting sideways glance. "You're covered," she said, and Jon pulled the coat a little tighter all the same. "You can see more now, yeah? Any cameras around that I should worry about?"

Jon blinked and _looked_ , as easy as breathing. The air felt strange around him, stretched and warped, like the Distortion's presence had never left, even though Helen was well and truly departed, as far as Jon could tell. "They didn't catch any of it," he said, and he swallowed his glaring awareness of the nearby statement, felt it lodge somewhere in his aching throat. "Same reason we use the tape recorders. In fact, I think the... interference rather ruined them."

"Fried?" Daisy asked, and Jon nodded. "Good. Run along."

Jon almost hesitated, almost asked her what she planned to do with the bodies, the sickly curiosity now a constant pressure behind his eyes, but he mastered it and thought better of the idea and made his slow, stiff way back to the hotel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Slaughter-typical violence.


	17. Chapter 17

Georgie wasn't brooding, and she definitely hadn't left earlier than necessary to meet with her witness. It was supposed to be an early lunch with him anyway, and when he got here, she wouldn't mention how long she'd been sitting there. The al fresco restaurant wasn't terribly busy at this time of the day, and no one really paid her any mind, so Georgie worked her way through more coffee and pretended to do important things on her mobile and the paper pad in front of her.

It might have been too much coffee, at this point, considering how jittery she felt, but she was already committed to it, and it kept her sharp, as if simulating a bundle of sensations that she lacked. She made sure to get the recommended amount of sleep every night, whenever she started to feel less than ideal, and yet it didn't seem to be enough, lately, and so she was on a second cup by the time Melanie called.

Georgie stared down at her phone and wasn't proud of the temptation to ignore it, to send a text with the claim that she was already lunching with the interviewee. But she shoved the impulse aside and braced herself, then answered, shoving her coffee aside.

"Your dreams," Melanie said in her ear at once, and Georgie didn't need to see her to know that she was full of an intense focus that she slipped into when she really got to digging. It was something in Melanie's voice, concentrated and forward-moving. "And that Oliver guy. You said you felt angry, frustrated, right? I need you to tell me _exactly_ how it feels."

Georgie stared out at the open air seating around her, at the couple of patrons and the people streaming down the pavement beyond, going about their days like there was absolutely nothing supernaturally wrong in the world. It was a rare sunny day, and the light made shadows out of every building and structure. "I... don't know?" she said, uncertain, and she blinked and saw the dissection room and forcibly pushed it out of her thoughts. The images left bloodstains anyway, trails at the corners of something that wasn't her vision. " _Why_ do you need to know?"

"I have a hunch," Melanie said, urgent. "It might be nothing, but it might be something."

Georgie sighed. She blinked and saw the dissection room, and the sense of it rang hollowly in her mind, like the press of cold and clinical steel against her thoughts. It wasn't so hard to recall now. That didn't mean that she _wanted_ to. But brushing Melanie off would only add to her pile of mistakes lately, and so Georgie mustered herself and tried to find the words. "It's, um... it just feels weird? I'm... _not_ an angry person, I don't think, but... I _hate_ these dreams and, and having avatars in my home, and I guess it just... built up into that?"

Melanie was silent long enough that Georgie knew she was disappointed with the answer. "You said you wanted to kill Oliver."

It wasn't said accusingly, but Georgie bristled all the same. "I wasn't _going_ to," she said. "Unless... he tried to hurt us? I don't know. I guess your arsehole _friend_ would have handled that." Melanie was silent again, and Georgie listened to the bustle of London around her and wondered what she was missing. "Melanie..." she ventured, a little pleadingly. "What are you thinking?"

"Did it feel like something got _into_ you?" Melanie asked, abrupt. "Like, literally. You said you felt _something_ in your dreams, right? A presence or whatever. You were angry, but did it feel like it... _came_ from your dreams? Like part of it was... connected to something else, maybe?"

Georgie's hand curled around her pen. The sights of the city, the nearby patrons, the curving iron fence that marked the boundaries of the restaurant veranda, it all faded away, as she blinked and saw the dissection room again. She'd seen it every night since last Thursday, since it had changed, and the only thing that had continued to change in the interim was its sharpening clarity. Even then, even when she could see it clearly in her waking hours, it was difficult to make sense of, but it was as if Melanie's words shone a light through its cold gloom, bringing dimensions of the dream into greater focus.

"Yeah," Georgie said, frowning. "It felt like it was... _in_ me, and... I don't know how it got there? Does that make sense?"

It sounded more like she was making excuses for her inability to direct her emotions in healthier directions, but a sharp intake of breath pierced her ear. "Yeah," Melanie said, like she had just had terrible news confirmed. "Shit."

"What is it?" Georgie asked, as patiently as she could. She became aware that she was clicking the end of the pen rather intensely, and she made herself stop.

She heard a distinct sound of movement on the other end and a faint but demanding meow. "Okay," Melanie said. "This is just a theory, but... I think you were feeling something else. Not the End, but... the Slaughter?"

Georgie's hand wrapped so tightly around the pen that it jabbed into her thumb. " _What?_ "

"I talked to Jon," Melanie explained, which was not the most reassuring thing she could have said, then. "And... I don't know, the Slaughter showed up somehow. I'll have to ask them about it later. Still... I think, maybe, that's what it was. I mean, when in your life have you ever picked up a knife for anything except cooking?"

Georgie didn't answer right away. She stared out at the dining area, at the street, at the shadows cast by the morning light, and she relaxed her death grip on the pen. "But what does that even mean?" she asked. She didn't _need_ this right now. Neither of them did. Bad enough that they had to deal with what Oliver had said, with the fact that monsters still took an interest in Melanie and that Georgie couldn't sleep without seeing awful things.

"I don't know," Melanie said, with a tinge of frustration. She'd never liked that particular combination of words. "Are you still angry?"

Georgie considered it and found that the requisite feeling was rather difficult to access. She was upset, sure, with the idea that yet another evil force was encroaching in her home, in her very mind, and she thought privately that maybe it would be very nice to go off on someone or something, but mostly? She was just tired, even with a few cups of coffee under her belt. If they didn't sort out this dream problem soon, she was liable to turn into a shuffling zombie. "Not as much?"

"Huh," Melanie said, and more movement came across the line, and then that single-minded focus returned to Melanie's voice. "I'm gonna run this by the others. You'll be back this afternoon, right? We could set up a call then. I can't be _sure_ that's what you were feeling, but--"

"Melanie," Georgie cut in, weary, and Melanie fell abruptly silent. "I've... got a lot to do today. I don't know when I'll get home."

Georgie felt the resultant silence like a weight, pouring through her ears into her stomach. "We need to talk about this," Melanie said, hard at the edges of her voice.

"I know," Georgie said, and even as she spoke, it felt like a lie. It wasn't like her. It shouldn't have been. But then again, neither was the anger, and she wasn't just going to pin that haphazardly on whatever dark god was convenient. "I'll try to get home when I can. Okay?"

Georgie wondered, for a moment, if Melanie would protest, and she wondered if that was all that it would take to break through Georgie's admittedly flimsy defenses. But: "Okay," Melanie said instead, and her voice cracked just a little bit. "Um... I'll get back to it, then. Love you."

It was apparent even across the phone that Melanie cringed her way through the words, and it occurred to Georgie, rather dumbfoundedly, that they'd never actually said _the words_ before. That Melanie had picked now, of all times, to make an attempt, perhaps with limited thought put into it beforehand. No wonder she sounded like she wanted to sink into the earth with it.

Georgie stared out at the veranda and hardly registered the chatter that surrounded her, as her heart thumped in her chest. Why _now_ , at the tail end of a phone call that Georgie was purposefully making difficult?

"Love you too," Georgie said, because it was true, of course it was, even though saying it al fresco across mobile seemed, well... not very romantic for a first time.

"Yeah," Melanie said, a bit shaky. "Be safe."

And then Georgie understood, _let me protect you for once_ , but Melanie hung up before she could get another word in.

Georgie lowered her phone and stared at it for a moment, and her eyes drifted to the paper pad sitting before her. Her thoughts drifted elsewhere, to the interview and the interview after that. To Oliver's words, the echoes of which had not abated, ringing between the hollow parts of her mind, burrowing into the images that lingered behind her eyes and would not leave. To Melanie, sequestered away at home trying to piece together a dangerous puzzle.

Georgie set the pen aside, opened the notes app on her phone, and began to type.

* * *

It was nasty work, but Daisy called for Basira, and Basira didn't hesitate. She left Martin fretting over Jon, who at least seemed to be physically no worse for the wear, and hurried to find Daisy. The incident appeared to have created a significant blind spot, in terms of surveillance, the edges of which Daisy seemed to intuit, and they made use of that and one of the cars and the surrounding parkland. It didn't even take that long, but time crawled by, when Basira remained painfully aware of Daisy's every movement, of the lingering silence that carried them through the deed.

They'd never really had a _need_ to talk much, sometimes, and Daisy had always seemed to know when Basira wasn't much in the mood for it. Basira was trying to return the favor, now, even though lately she'd been seized with the desire to do nothing but. Like she was making up for something, in anticipation of whatever loomed on the horizon.

When there were no more bodies left to hide, they returned to where they'd left the car, just outside the dense copse of trees. Daisy returned tools to the trunk and made a sweep of the interior, in case any immediate evidence was left behind, while Basira leaned against the edge of the car with her back to it, staring out at the trees. There were too many thoughts in her head, building up an unbearable pressure, and now that there was no task on which to focus...

"Talked to Jon?" Basira asked finally.

"Mmm-hmm," Daisy said.

Basira cast her eyes to the side and watched. Examined the healthy sheen to Daisy's face and didn't know what to think. "Feel better?"

Daisy hesitated, gazing down at the trunk. The corners of her mouth tugged up in a smirk. "Why?" she asked. "Jealous?"

Basira released an irritated huff. "Shut up," she said, without heat, shaking her head and returning her gaze to the trees. Nothing stirred within them, no shadow of an enemy or whisper of a threat, although she watched for it all the same, automatic and wary. "You know what? Yeah. I think I am." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daisy arch an eyebrow at her and added, "I'm... trying this thing where I actually say what I'm feeling."

Daisy nudged aside a shovel that she had yet to tuck back into the trunk, where it leaned against the car. She turned and put her back to the open trunk too, and her shoulder leaned comfortably against Basira's, like it was meant to fit there. "Good," she said. "Glad you are. I think... I need to do the same."

"You don't have to," Basira said.

But Daisy only bumped her shoulder into Basira's. "Yeah, I do," she said, and her face darkened, a passing sheen crossing her eyes at odds with the daylight. "There's all this... shit in my head," she continued. "I... I wanted to kill you, you know. Back at the reservoir. If you'd been any less smart about it, I would have tried. And I wanted to... to _hurt_ Jon. Part of me still..." She went silent, scowling down at the grass. "It feels like _shit_ , and it wouldn't be easy, if you had to do the same to me. Guess I keep thinking about that too. You're not... obligated to make me feel better, Basira, I--"

"Stop," Basira said, and Daisy did so, her mouth clicking shut. "It's not about that. I thought... I let myself think like that before, and all it did was let Melanie and Jon and Martin get hurt. And you. And... me too. It's not about... what you've done or wanted to do or could do, or what you're obligated to do, it's that... none of us are going to pull through anything if we feel like hot fucking garbage all the time, and that includes you. So... I _want_ to help. And not just by promising to stop you."

Daisy considered this. She put her hands into her pockets and gave Basira a long, level look. "Who are you?"

Basira laughed, tired and little more than an exhale. "Shut up," she said again. "I am... the victim of people being nice to me when I would have... when I would have just yelled at me or worse."

"Yeah," Daisy murmured, eyes shifting to the ground. "Me too."

The wind whistled through the trees ahead, stirring the shadows cast by growing daylight. It felt incongruous, to be out here burying the bodies of police officers in the bright gleam of midmorning, but Daisy possessed some preternatural sense of her surroundings and knew that no one would stumble upon them. And Basira knew, with an unidentifiable certainty, that she was right. The sounds of traffic were distant, and there was nothing out here, except the copse and the car and the bodies now hidden away.

"I don't know what to do, though," Basira admitted, watching a few dead leaves tumble down to join their brethren on the ground. "I mean, I can come up with a plan," and Daisy shot a dry look in her direction, "I _can_ , but... I don't know if it's right. I don't know if it's just going to end badly. I don't know if I... know how to help you. All I can do is admit that... I don't know. And I think I need to learn to just... sit in that. And not... fight it, or put it on you or anyone else."

"That's good, then," Daisy said easily. "You don't have to know."

Basira sighed and scuffed at the dirt. "It just sucks, you know? You've... always been there for me, and I..."

"Yeah," Daisy interrupted, "and you're here, so. Good enough for me."

Basira turned away from the trees in order to better direct a scowl towards Daisy. "Will you let me say my piece?"

"Nope," Daisy said, popping the p, and what she probably meant was _It's okay,_ and maybe she didn't say it because she knew that a few simple words like that might flay Basira raw right now.

So silence settled again, because Basira didn't know how to fill it, and Daisy still seemed plenty comfortable with that sort of thing. Even with dead planted beneath the ground now, there was a peace to it, out here where the traffic was distant and the trees rustled near. Until at last Daisy grabbed the shovel beside her and hefted it, and then shoved the tip down into the ground like she was laying claim to it.

"We keep them safe," Daisy said, rather like a declaration. "We don't give up until Elias, or whoever he is, is in the ground, and anyone else that tries it. And maybe the world pulls through, even if we don't." She tilted her head in Basira's direction. "Think that's a good start?"

Basira gave her an unimpressed look. "What did I _just_ say about sitting in it?"

Daisy shrugged and rocked the shovel back and forth a few times, making a small indentation in the dirt. "Something wise and moody, I think," she said. "Dunno. This new Basira talks too much. Hard to keep up."

Basira chuckled. It felt light, for once. Almost easy. "Could've fooled me," she said, folding her arms, "'cause I think we're on the same page."

"Funny how that works," Daisy said, amused, but it faded fast, and what settled in its place was darker, more troubled. She let go of the shovel, and it clanged softly as it fell back against the car. "Basira..." Daisy said, like the words were difficult to extract, "it means a lot, that you wanted to give me a chance. But I need you to be sure about stopping me too. That... helps just as much. More than you know."

Basira watched her, watched the uneasy twitching of her eyes here and there, like Daisy couldn't quite settle. "Alright," Basira said, and it was quiet and iron. And honest, insofar as she could be. She told herself that she wouldn't hesitate again, if it came down to that, and she almost believed it. "But only when there's no more choice involved. Okay?"

Daisy nodded. Her eyes traced patterns in the grass, in the dirt. "Okay," she agreed, soft. "It's just... I don't like what's in my head."

Basira's chest seized, painful and futile, because it wasn't something that she could fix, not when she'd helped it along, once. Wasn't even something that Jon could fix, not entirely, and Basira could only imagine what it was that had Daisy turning so readily to death as an option. But the offer to talk about it was already on the table, and Daisy would take it when she wanted to, and so Basira scooped the shovel up and tossed it back into the car, before slamming the trunk closed. "Then let's find some other things to do."

* * *

"What happened to going to the _lounge_?" Martin demanded, after Basira had left. Jon had the decency to look sheepish as he removed Daisy's coat, and Martin's heart may have stopped when he saw the gashes in Jon's own coat beneath, the dark splatters of blood. "Christ, Jon, what did they _do_?"

"This wasn't them," Jon said, laying Daisy's coat out on the bed and obligingly letting Martin inspect him. His soft voice was nearly swallowed by the gravelly timbre of his wrecked throat. "It was Helen."

Martin's heart nearly stopped again, and the bruise on his head throbbed under the onslaught of shock. " _Helen_ did this?" he demanded. His hands trailed over Jon, hunting down any sign of lingering injury, but it seemed like Jon's usual healing factor was still intact, at all places except the scars. The gashes in his coat and shirt were long and deep, however, and Martin's stomach turned over on itself as he regarded them. Jesus Christ. And to think, he'd suggested using Helen's corridors. He'd actually thought that was a good idea.

But Jon's face was set into troubled, unreadable lines. "It was an accident, I think," he said. "She... saved me."

Martin blinked. "Oh," he said. "Good?" Jon said nothing, his eyes distant, and Martin studied him. "Are you... okay?"

With a little shake, Jon appeared to rouse himself. "Yes," he said and then amended the statement at Martin's pointed look. "Physically, yes, aside from, well..." he let out a raspy chuckle, entirely humorless, "the usual." Unbidden, Martin's eyes traveled over him, alighting on angry red scars and bandages, and it was difficult to tear his gaze away. The _usual_. How had it barely been a week? "Everything else..." Jon breathed slowly, heavily, in and out. "I... killed one of them. Two, if you count the one I pushed through Helen's door."

"I mean _yeah_ ," Martin said, with no hesitation, and Jon blinked at him, startled. But Martin was not going to stand here and listen to Jon beat himself up over killing evil police. "They were trying to _kidnap you_. You have a right to defend yourself."

"It was more than that," Jon said, and the troubled look etched itself deeper into his face. "I let the Eye rip him apart."

Martin resisted the urge to ask what else Jon was _supposed_ to do to defend himself. He wasn't exactly a gun-wielding badass. "What, do you feel bad about Peter too? Could have sworn you didn't."

"That's..." Jon hesitated, like he knew that he was treading on a slippery slope, "different."

"Why?" Martin asked, his voice growing dangerously soft. "Because he hurt _me_?"

Jon at least had the awareness to know when he was caught in a corner. He eyed Martin with something that wasn't quite frustration, but Martin didn't budge, only stared back at him stubbornly. "Alright," Jon said slowly. "I see your point. But still. This is hardly something to encourage. It was the same, with the NotThem. I... _relished_ killing it, and this time, I let the Slaughter infect me even though it was of no real help. I welcomed it and... the things it pushed me to do and say."

Well... maybe that was a little concerning, but if they were going to carry on with this, they'd have to find some way to mitigate whatever _changes_ happened as a result. "Okay, then," Martin said, thoughts racing, and with a gentle tug, he helped Jon out of the torn coat and draped it over his arm. The shirt underneath was ruined too, and they'd have to stop somewhere and get him a new coat, at this point, but for now, they could at least get comfortable. He tugged on Jon again, towards the door. "It didn't get you, so... what helped?"

"Melanie called," Jon said, as Martin opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

In very short order, Martin had learned that Slaughter-aligned police officers had come for Jon, that Daisy was hiding their bodies, and that Helen had apparently cut Jon open but it was fine because she'd been saving his life. He shouldn't have been left gaping at a mundane follow-up to that, but... " _What?_ " Martin asked.

"She said she'll call back," Jon said distractedly, which was no help at all in clarifying the matter. He clearly had other things on his mind, however, as he swept past Martin and made the short trip to their room. "But... she helped. And Daisy and..." Jon's brows furrowed, not quite thunderous, as Martin retrieved the room key and unlocked the door, "Helen, I suppose."

And yet Martin hadn't been there. He'd wanted to give Jon space, and it could have been a decision that he spent the rest of whatever remained of his life regretting, if the others hadn't come through. "So, clearly, it helps if you're not alone," Martin said, as they entered their own hotel room, and he didn't mean for his voice to grow so irritated. "Which is _not_ helped if you _wander off_. I don't want to smother you, Jon, and obviously we can't be joined at the hip, but right now, you can't just walk off to nowhere without telling m-- without telling someone!" Nothing good seemed to come out of going for walks, that was for sure. "You're lucky that Daisy and Helen were there!"

"I know. I won't do it again." Jon appeared sheepish enough, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room like he didn't know what to do with himself, as if he'd forgotten that his shirt was cut up too, that dark bloodstains blotted his left shoulder. Martin summarily decided to back off, but something must have crept into his face. Some shadow of what crossed his mind, as he reflected on the fact that Jon had been alone until he wasn't, and it hadn't been Martin. But Jon's voice called Martin out of the hole into which his thoughts were burrowing. "What's wrong?"

Martin sighed, as he stepped around Jon to toss the ruined coat into a heap next to their laundry bag. It had worked out, and that was exactly why they needed Daisy on their team, and yet... "Last night, I _knew_ you were in trouble," Martin said, insistent, as he spun back around. The itching feeling of urgency under his skin, the knowledge resounding like an echo without source, the _fear_. "I didn't even know this time! What's the point of this... this bond thing if it doesn't _work_?"

Jon looked unbearably fond, between the tired lines of his face. "I don't know if it's _meant_ to work like that."

"Well, it should," Martin said. He knew it came out ridiculously petulant, which was only confirmed by the slight tilt at the corners of Jon's mouth, the deepening of the fondness hovering at the corners of his eyes.

But Jon's expression took on a thoughtful cast, and his eyes flicked elsewhere, lost in whatever churned beneath his head. "Last night, we were deep in the grip of the Hunt," he said. "This was... very sudden. As is the Slaughter's nature, I suppose." He frowned out at the hotel room, at the window bathed in midmorning light, and Martin knew that he wasn't _seeing_ , exactly, knew the absence of the Eye as surely as its presence, now. But Jon's preoccupied contemplation didn't appear all that different, these days. "It... I don't know. I think things... _carry_ more, when the powers are... more present. The officers said that they _heard_ our hunt, whatever that means."

The words landed hard and heavy, strengthening the lingering imprint of that urgency, that knowledge, that fear, and Martin swallowed. "So, we've been pounding on their front doors?"

Jon grimaced. "Maybe."

"Then we need to not do that," Martin said.

"We might not have much of a choice," Jon said cautiously, like he knew that Martin wouldn't want to hear the words. "At this point, I really can't guess what's enough to trigger their appearances."

Martin groaned. "Can you at least go a _day_ without something _happening_ to you?" He regretted it instantly, when Jon's face fell, and Martin crossed the room and lifted his hands, cupping either side of Jon's face between them and making Jon look up at him. Scars and stubble scratched beneath his fingers, and Martin had the inane thought that nothing else could happen, while he had Jon held like this. "Look, this isn't your fault. I'm just... worried."

Jon looked pained, between Martin's hands. "I know. I'm sorry--" He stopped, when Martin frowned at him. "What I mean is, I... wish you didn't have to be."

Yeah, and Martin wished that Jon didn't have to be laden with needless guilt. They couldn't always get what they wanted. "Well, too bad," Martin said, brushing thumbs over reddened scars. "I'm going to _choose_ to worry as much as I please."

Jon smiled, tired and strained and genuine. "Who am I to stop you?" he asked, and Martin leaned in to brush his lips against Jon's forehead in answer.

* * *

They left Oldham on Jon's recommendation, as quickly as possible, and Daisy was, on a practical level, in agreement. The area stank of death, now, violent and bloody, and she didn't know what it was, exactly, that let her feel it somewhere down beneath bones that no longer ached. Let her feel something more, too, something in the air all twisted up and wrong. She knew exactly what Jon was talking about, when he suggested finding another hotel at a reasonable distance. It would be safer, less likely to attract unwanted attention, and yet something in Daisy longed to dig her heels in and wait. To investigate every last corner of the reservoir and this hotel, to sniff out whatever it was that felt so off.

To look.

Basira had several places in mind, naturally, and they settled on the area around Birmingham: a step closer to London, but not so close as to box themselves into any directions before they were ready. Basira refused to consider any bigger towns and only listed places that had easy access to countryside. For bolt purposes, mainly, but Daisy wondered, of course, if it was because there were less potential victims in marginally less populated areas.

Whatever the reason, it was caution of a kind that Daisy wasn't accustomed to. Even a two-hour drive to lay low in another area was slow-going, for Basira, and Daisy observed her, as they packed hastily and left. She observed Martin too, as the day wore on, and she didn't dare let her eyes rest too long on Jon, but she paid attention, as best she could.

It almost scratched at an itch. Almost calmed the restless energy pounding away somewhere within her. Daisy didn't know how she was supposed to _redirect_ that sort of thing, when all they were doing was moving base and settling in again, but she could distract herself well enough by studying the others. It didn't feel awful, although it seemed tinged with something else that was and wasn't quite her. Something _curious_.

There was no covering up the bruise on Martin's head, but he seemed steady on his feet. Like Basira, he was different now, from what Daisy recalled, though several months' worth of her memories concerning him were hazy. He was determined, brimming with nearly as much restless drive as Daisy felt. He hovered at Jon's side like his mere presence could stave off whatever catastrophe lurked around the next corner. From what Basira had told her, he actually had.

And he was very eager to act. It took Jon and Basira both to get him to take it a little easier with the packing, on account of the head injury and all.

Basira, meanwhile, was hesitant. She wouldn't look it to a stranger, maybe, but Daisy had been expecting her to suggest an immediate assault on London, at the very least, and that was far from all of it. Even now, her every move around Daisy was cautious, and it wasn't the way in which one might tread around a dangerous animal. It was just Basira, bereft of a sure compass, and more than that, having willingly surrendered it.

But even a changed Basira wasn't so hard to read, in more ways than not. Daisy could sniff out the bruised pride, the guilt underneath it all, as easy as if Basira had spoken it aloud. She very nearly had. She'd grown chattier than usual, in her own way, and Daisy wondered if it was natural. If it had only been buried under all of the shit they'd dug themselves into.

She liked it.

And Jon, well... he was somewhere between hunted and hurt, and brimming with his own kind of strange, hungry energy. Daisy didn't know how he managed to nail both demeanors, but it was partly because of her, and it was something that some nameless part of her recognized instantly, instinctively, hungrily. And so she wasn't going to dwell on that.

By the time afternoon rolled around, they'd settled into a relatively cheap hotel at the edge of Lichfield. Their rooms were a little more cozy than the ones they'd left behind, and it was an odd sort of comfortable, as Daisy and Basira piled into Jon and Martin's room, as Jon dialed Melanie.

It made Daisy's skin itch. Like something was dangerous, about the ridiculously thick bedding, and the cute little chairs, and the worn but plush carpeting.

Hearing Melanie's voice again, after their brief and distracted exchange this morning, was just as strange, as much of an odd tug of emotion somewhere in Daisy's gut as any of the others. It hadn't even been all that long, and yet it felt like an age, when most of Daisy hadn't expected to hear her ever again. Melanie was harder to read, with no body language to study, but she came across rather subdued, as she greeted them.

"Is Georgie there?" Jon asked, hoarsely, hopefully. He had four tapes laid out on the table in front of him and a recorder running near his phone

"Uh..." Melanie said, "no." Basira's face was unmoving, where she'd draped herself into one of the quaint armchairs that the room offered, dragged close to the bed where Daisy sprawled. Martin acquired a frown, in his seat across from Jon. Jon gazed down at the phone, and though Daisy tried to observe him only through her periphery, he very obviously deflated. "She's... still out and about. But she sent me some... notes? About her dreams? So... let's just do this. I'll talk to her later."

"Right," Jon said, just as obvious about trying to keep disappointment out of his voice. "I believe we're all caught up on most of the necessary details, so... what's this theory of yours?"

Melanie took a breath that shook across the line. "It was the Slaughter this morning," she said. "And you said it was the _Hunt_ yesterday? Well... I think Georgie's been... sensing it?" Jon tensed, in the corner of Daisy's eye, and Basira frowned, and Martin's eyes widened slightly. "For a few days now. She picked up a knife and was about ready to run that Oliver guy through, and she said she's been feeling weird and angry, in her dreams. Like something gets into her, in them. Like... something gets all stirred up. She said, um... that's the only thing that's really changed so far, apart from you being all weird, Jon, and you're still there and-- and bleeding, and it still looks like an Eye dream, from what she wrote, so... yeah."

Daisy chanced a quick glance in Jon's direction, to find him looking predictably miserable. The scar on his neck was an angry red color, like it was inflamed, and Daisy's stomach leapt with nausea, with... something else, decidedly less upsetting. She looked away, digging fingers into the duvet beneath her. "And I'm guessing that's a bit more than a hunch," Jon said, grim.

"Yeah," Melanie said, just as unhappy. "Something about this feels... familiar, when I stop and think about it."

Basira's fingers were restless against the arms of the chair. "You said she's been feeling it for a few days," she said. "She _predicted_ it?"

"Not necessarily," Jon said. "The powers have all taken some time to... arrive. It could be that she's only felt them beginning to stir. The question is, how?"

"You don't know?" Melanie asked.

Jon shifted uncomfortably, and Daisy watched Martin, observed the intent concern on Martin's face, the way he shifted in turn. "You might be right, about Georgie... sensing something," Jon said, after several long moments. "But I don't know for sure. I... have a hard time recalling details of, of the dreams, and... when I look, it's... it's difficult..."

His voice grew labored as he spoke, however, like the words pained him. Or the effort did, as Martin leaned forward. "Could I help?" Martin asked, and attention in the room shifted to him. "If we can do some of the same things now, then... I don't know, could I... do something?"

Another long silence passed, and it was Basira's turn to lean forward slightly, studying. "I don't know," Jon said, uneasy and thoughtful both. "It's... the information is there, when I look, as far as I can tell. It's just... too much. Like my mind can't hold it all. It's painful to try, Martin, I don't want you to--"

"Best to try now, though," Basira cut in, and Martin nodded pointedly, bolstered by the backup as he arched his eyebrows at Jon. "Bit more of a controlled environment than out in the field."

Jon sighed, long and irritated. "Fine," he said mulishly, and Daisy almost smiled. She watched, out of the corner of her eye, as Jon extended his uninjured hand across the table, between the tapes. "But only if we do so together."

It was a good play, and Daisy might have been a little proud. Martin immediately looked less keen on the idea, if it involved dragging Jon into a painful possibility along with him. He stared down at Jon's hand for a moment, his mouth drawing thin, but it seemed that he wasn't quite willing to give ground just yet. His hand latched on to Jon's, his grip clinging.

"Anyone mind narrating this for me?" Melanie's voice asked.

"They're going to do a seance," Basira said, dry.

"I claim no responsibility for any ghosts we summon," Jon said, just as deadpan. Daisy kept her eyes on their linked hands, even though she wanted to lift her gaze, even though she had to tell herself, over and over again, not to look. "I... don't really know what I'm doing here. Two minds might be able to hold more, but... this, us, isn't a matter of inaccessible information. It doesn't seem to be something that I _can_ know."

"Then all we can do is try and see what works," Martin said, stubborn.

It didn't work. Daisy's eyes traveled up and found the scar again, and she thought about what it would have been like, to rip a new world, hot and bloody, out of Jon's throat. To shatter the glass between one world and another, to wrench open a door and let the wolves in. _I don't think you will,_ Jon had said, and Daisy nearly ripped a hole in the duvet, as Jon suddenly gasped and curled in on himself, hand yanked out of Martin's with the force of it.

Distracted, Daisy thought, with a sick swooping of her insides. Vulnerable.

"Jesus," Martin said, halfway out of his chair, and Daisy wrenched her eyes away from Jon and made herself pay attention to Martin. To the color draining out of his face. "Jon, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Jon groaned, straightening unsteadily like the weight of worlds had knocked him askew, though his uninjured hand shuddered against the table. His bandaged hand was curled gingerly against his side, Daisy couldn't help but observe. One functional hand left him even more vulnerable, but slowly, deliberately, Daisy moved her gaze to Basira, to Martin. "I-- give me a moment."

Martin's expression was stricken as he sank back into the chair. "Um... you're right, Melanie," he said. "That's all I got?" Jon nodded wearily, confirming it, and Martin didn't look appeased. His voice pitched higher with strain. "I didn't feel anything else. Why... why would it only hurt you?"

In the corner of Daisy's eye, Jon heaved a steadying sigh and straightened a little more, settling back into his chair. "I imagine it has something to do with my relative position to the Eye," he said. "But I don't know what you are to it. And it's fine," Jon added preemptively, as Martin opened his mouth again. "Now we know that seeing only goes so far with two minds, at least for now." Martin didn't look happy, but he didn't say anything further, fidgeting in the chair. "And Melanie, I'm... it might just be that I need to grow into my powers a bit more. I'll keep an eye out for anything that might be helpful to Georgie's... situation, and if you need us, at all--"

"Um... thanks," Melanie said, quick and a little stiff. "Kind of wish I wasn't right, but... for now, I can let you know if Georgie starts to... feel anything else? I want to help," she added, oddly intense. "Even if it's just sending you texts like, hey, watch out."

"Advanced warning?" Basira said. "That's the most useful damn thing I can think of."

It was another thing that Daisy had observed: little things that Basira now said, of no real use, except as nuggets of peace offerings. "Great," Melanie said, almost relieved.

The following silence didn't last long, because it was clear, even in the corner of Daisy's eye, that Jon had been sitting on something for quite a while, that it was bubbling up now, all at once, under the pressure of some perceived failure. "There's something else you should all know," Jon said, and he could hardly get it past the croak that his voice had become, until he cleared his throat. "I... didn't know this until last night, but... Institute employees are... directly connected to the Archivist. To me. In such a way that... my death would have severed everything tying you to the Institute." His breath hitched, miserable and tired. "It's always been me."

Basira stilled, a hand curling tight around her phone. Melanie said nothing. Martin tensed, but he didn't look surprised, only fully prepared to launch into some kind of fight.

"Well, good," Daisy said into the silence. "I like not being a rabid beast." Jon's eyes snapped to her. She could feel his gaze, weighty, burning, and though her own eyes were firmly on the duvet, she was all too aware of the red line on his neck. Sometimes it was hard to stop seeing it, even when her eyes were full of something else. "That's how you did it, yeah?" Daisy continued. "Think I'd be a lot worse off, if you hadn't figured that out."

Jon's breath hitched again. Daisy refused to look at him.

"Nothing we can do about it now," Basira said suddenly, briskly, all business. Her expression was unreadable, as she gazed at Jon, as Daisy gazed at her. "Does it work the other way around? So that putting a bullet in Elias shouldn't be a problem?"

"It's... not clear yet," Jon said uncertainly, unsteadily, and Daisy heard him shift. "Melanie, I'm-- I'm sorry. If I had known..."

"What?" Melanie demanded, harsh. "What would you have done?" She let loose a bitter, shaky laugh. "How much of an arsehole do you think I am? That I'd _want_ \--" But she sucked in a breath and stopped, and Daisy could just picture that pinched look on her face. "No, I-- I don't regret this. I won't. You don't get to take that from me. Besides, Helen said that... maybe not having my eyes would help? No idea what that means, but that's good, because I've got... the fucking End in my home, apparently, and that's got fuck all to do with you, Jon, so... don't you dare make me feel even more like shit than I already do."

Basira raised an artful eyebrow, as a few fingers played at the edges of her braids. Martin relaxed somewhat, though he looked vaguely perplexed.

"Sorry," Melanie added, subdued again. "That probably came across really strong."

"Not, um," Jon said, a hoarse, bewildered croak, "not at all."

Outside, someone revved a distant engine, and very faint sounds of laughter came from somewhere in the hallway. Daisy chanced a glance in Jon's direction, even though she told herself not to. He sat rigid, braced, waiting for something that hadn't come. Less vulnerable, when he was that tense, and fucking Christ, _shut up_.

"Well," Basira said, brisk again, and she flicked away at her phone, fingers held ready, "now that's out of the way... what else do we know, going forward? Give me a summary."

No one answered for a moment, like the quiet was simply too awkward to breach, until: "Elias-- Jonah's is the only ritual that we know has a chance of working," Martin said, firm, falling into a speaking rhythm. "Interrupting it also worked, but doing that connected me and Jon somehow. We don't know how good or bad of a thing that is, and we don't have many parameters for it yet." Basira's fingers flew over the screen. "It also... did something, where the other powers are concerned? Sounded some kind of alarm, I guess, enough that Helen knew and those police officers knew and Daisy could tell. Other avatars and powers will be looking to try their hands."

"I have reason to believe that the Web is involved," Jon said, slow but picking up speed when Martin took a breath, apparently having recovered enough to croak out some additions. "Due to precedent, where metaphysical binding is concerned. I can't begin to guess how, but... we should be wary. And this ritual, or its effects... supersede anything else about the powers. The Hunt was just as eager to complete a ritual as the Lonely. We have to assume that they will all seek the same thing, regardless of what may have been conjectured about them. We," he took a deep breath, "we don't know as much about them as we think we do. I don't think anyone does."

"But you're connected to them, yeah?" Basira said, eyes intent as they moved between screen and speaker. "You can use their abilities when they're around. And that's how you got those."

Daisy's eyes shifted to the table at which Jon and Martin sat. To the tapes resting there: one frozen, one inverted, one bloodstained, one knife-sharp. Jon's uninjured hand ghosted over them, and Daisy saw the little scars there, jagged holes as red as the one on his neck. She clung to the duvet and looked away.

"Yes," Jon said quietly. "I'm... not sure what these are, yet, but I can only pull them from within the grip of a fear. It's... hardly a statement, really, it's more like... questions that I ask. An attempt to _look_. And the powers don't care for that at all, which tells me that... these are important."

"We can speculate later," Basira said, and Daisy watched her, followed the movements of her eyes. She listened to the whir of the recorder. It was distracting enough, in the moment. "Main thing is that we're not totally defenseless when a cosmic horror comes knocking. So I'm with Martin on the buddy system thing."

"Thank you," Martin said, satisfied.

"And Georgie's got some kind of connection to all of this," Melanie added. "I can let you know if she senses anything else."

"So we've got firepower and warning, maybe," Basira said, and she stopped typing. "And the means to get through the Institute's tunnels. Not bad, all things considered. Next step is to hunt down Elias. But," she added, when Jon and Martin both moved as if to speak, "no one is trying to _know_ anything until we are good and ready. We don't know if it would alert him or whatever, and I need to get some fresh intel on the Institute first. We're taking a breather in the meantime."

"Wow," Melanie said. "That really you, Basira?"

Basira sighed, but it was exaggerated, something close to fond. "We've got a head wound, whatever the hell is going on with you," she waved absently at Jon, "and I'm pretty sure _you_ ," she shot a glare in Daisy's direction, "didn't even sleep last night. We've been attacked by no less than four evil gods, and it hasn't even been a week. At this rate, all anyone would have to do is wait for us to drop dead." She balanced her phone on the arm of her chair, a decisive movement. "We can give it a few days. And I feel better about it, knowing that Georgie can... do her thing. Assuming that works out." Basira paused, gears clearly turning in her mind. "Anything else?"

She had it together, Daisy thought. More so than she was giving herself credit for. As usual, it was typically small things that fell through the cracks in the deluge of information, details of which Basira had no time for when she was thinking fast. "None of us are getting paid anymore, yeah?" Daisy reminded her. She'd sussed that out while Basira had been narrowing down hotels.

Basira scowled. "Fuck," she said. "Slipped my mind entirely." She exhaled hard through her nose, and it might have been a dry laugh. "God, that's..."

"A hell of a thing to worry about right now," Jon murmured.

"Yeah," Basira said. "But, we've got savings between us." It wasn't just safe houses that Daisy had in the wings. The Hunt, it seemed, thrived even more in looking over one's shoulder, in the paranoia of expecting something at your back, of squirreling away in anticipation of worse. But at least something about it was paying off, Daisy thought, at an end point that wasn't bloodshed. In a way that would help to keep them fed and housed, at least for a little while. "I'm not sure about the logistics of going back to London right now, but I've still got a flat, and Martin, I think?"

"Still mine," Martin agreed.

"And, uh," Melanie piped up, a little hesitant, "don't think Georgie would go for sleepovers, and nothing to break the bank, but... if you guys need some help... just ask?"

Basira nodded, more to herself than anything. "Sure thing. And Daisy's got a house or two close enough to London, if we need. Might do in a pinch. Worst case, Daisy and I will bite the bullet on a little petty crime, though I really hope we're not at this long enough to need to."

"You think Jon and I couldn't get up to some thievery?" Martin asked, and it only sounded halfway like a joke. 

"I think we'd get off easier," Basira said frankly and made no mention of her and Daisy's executive decision to handle the bulk of the dirty work, in a least they could do kind of way. "So. That should cover it for now. Sounds good?"

She said it to Jon, like they'd come to an agreement to juggle decision-making between them, and Daisy's eyes followed an unbidden trail, in a moment of lapsed concentration. She honed in on the scar, red and inflamed, and she could see the exact cuts she'd have to make in and around it. The openings through which the chase could emerge ascendant, deeper than skin and bone. It couldn't be so deep that he couldn't speak, though. Not at first. He was of the Eye, after all. The only problem would be making him speak.

"Should be," Jon said, a troubled furrow between his reddened eyes, a faraway look in them. He didn't seem to notice the hungry gaze on his neck. Daisy shuddered, and something made of both revulsion and delight turned in her stomach, and she tore her eyes away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been trying to break my habit of writing stupid long things, and so far I've been good about splitting up chapters when they get ridiculous. (Which is why this doesn't have a definite chapter count. Who knows? Not me!) But I didn't want to split this into two whole conversation chapters, so I hope teamwork makes the dream work and makes up for this one being roughly 2k short of 10k words.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two [Glass Animals songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7UsQIx14CE) in particular [wrote this chapter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejirGSd3Hws), not me.
> 
> Content warnings in the end notes.

The dissection room remained empty that night, as it had every night since the dreams had begun. No dead, no cold and empty voice whispering things that Georgie did not want to hear. Nothing to fear, when it couldn't fit into the hollow parts of her mind. Except that something was there, something that was not the room's other occupant. A great shadow, a rising tide, or else that was just how Georgie saw them, felt them, a creeping and implacable chill groaning across her growing awareness.

She knew that she was dreaming. She knew that something else was here. She knew that the room's other occupant was here and that he bled and bled and bled. Her thoughts felt more like hers than they had when the dreams had first started. Lucid, almost, like she'd remember this perfectly when she awoke. Like she could remember things from her waking hours, too. Like she could think here, like she could see farther and clearer now. Like she had only to turn her mind in a direction and walk.

Georgie had never been a lucid dreamer, but she was aware of blinking, now, like she had a body here, like this wasn't merely an unwilling tangle of brain waves. She was aware of the empty classroom, the cold metal. She was aware of her eyes, fixed upon the room's other occupant, and she was aware that it hurt to look at him, a hollow sting of bitter loss. She thought that it was supposed to hurt, when he looked upon her, but it didn't. She thought there was something strange about the sight of him, but she couldn't hold her gaze steady long enough to see.

She didn't want to see. She wanted this to stop.

Maybe all she needed to do was wake up.

This proved difficult. Georgie blinked and knew that she was here, in this room that had never been a nightmare until the words had come spilling out of her, and she felt the tide that was not a tide, felt the thing that stirred within the invisible current, brushing against her legs, her arms, intent upon the shadow. She remembered, vaguely, that she had a flat, and a cat, and a girlfriend, and a job or two, and she blinked, and blinked again, as if that would open her waking eyes.

It didn't. The current moved around her, against her, inexorable.

There was no room for fear, here in her head, so Georgie blinked and tried again. This time, she returned her awareness to the room's other occupant, and though Georgie was meant to be seen and the other was meant to watch, there was little to feed the terrible shadow obscured by the silhouette before it. It could not overwhelm her, and so she could think.

He was even less hazy, less ill-defined, and as the current flowed, Georgie's thoughts followed it. It contorted around the room's other occupant, and the thing in the current stirred, a restless vibration, and Georgie blinked and looked closer, as the other became less silhouette, more person.

She saw bleeding red lines and ragged holes and deep bruises, saw red, too much red. She saw that the room's other occupant was not always _there_ , though he never seemed to leave. She saw him walk where the shadow looked, out of sight, and she saw him return.

She saw Jon, covered in lacerations and blood.

She saw all of his _eyes_.

Georgie blinked, slow with realization, like she was seeing something that had always been there. Eyes, some of them nestled within the little holes that littered Jon's skin, some of them burrowed elsewhere. Blood ran into them too, and yet the eyes did not shut. They were fixed on Georgie, and she stared back, and she counted them, as if that would make sense of the sight.

Fourteen eyes, including Jon's own. She hadn't seen them before, but they were apparent now. Something had changed.

She'd _made_ it change.

There was no room for fear, here in her head, and Georgie had made something change, and she blinked and tried again. This time, she grew aware of her breathing, in and out, of the flow of air from lungs to throat and back. She was aware that she had a body. That she had a mouth. That such a thing was used to speak.

Georgie had never been a lucid dreamer, but her thoughts were clearer, and she had a body and a mouth, and she'd made something change.

"Wake up," she managed, barely a whisper, and the current flowed and rose towards her chest, her neck.

She wasn't sure if the words were meant for herself or for Jon, but Jon didn't respond. Didn't move. He had too many eyes, and a terrible gaze burned behind him, and he bled and bled and bled, and Georgie couldn't bear it.

"Wake up," she said again, a little stronger. "Wake _up_."

Jon did not wake up. Neither did Georgie. The dissection room was empty, and the metal was chill, and the current flowed and flowed and flowed. Georgie's chest was cold with it, and she had the fleeting thought that the thing within it would love nothing more than to wind tendrils down her throat.

"Wake up, Jon," she demanded, desperate, even though opening her mouth again felt too close to an invitation. But there was no room for fear, here in her head, and she had a flat, and a cat, and a girlfriend, and a job or two, and she could not just sit back and let something happen to that. " _Look_ what it's doing to you. You have to wake up."

Jon did not wake up, and he didn't move. He watched, motionless, unreadable, like he didn't care how much Georgie begged. Like he couldn't hear it.

" _Wake up_ ," Georgie demanded.

He didn't. And neither did she.

Georgie tried to move, tried to remember that she had feet and muscles and a body meant for moving, but the current flowed and flowed and flowed, inexorable, around her and against her. It wound this way and that, and she tried to push forward, against it, through it, with the intent of shaking Jon awake if she had to. She strained to move, and she didn't. She felt her legs, her feet beneath her, and they remained rooted to the cold tile.

Frustration flared, a shock of feeling that flowed through her limbs, and yet the current flowed stronger.

Georgie tried to move. Her legs and her feet could make no headway against the current, and Jon watched. Georgie tried to move, and she could not.

"Wake up," she said, small again.

There was no response, and Georgie's eyes moved from Jon to the edges of the shadow behind him, and she saw the way in which he was as much silhouette as person. The way he remained hazy at the edges, even when her gaze was sharp and clear. She saw the terrible thing behind him, felt its gaze refract through him, felt it slide off of her like water. Like it could find no purchase in the hollow places in her head. Like it could make as much headway through the current as she could.

"Leave him alone," Georgie said.

Jon didn't move. He had too many eyes, and he kept bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. His edges grew no more defined.

"Leave him _alone_ ," Georgie said again, furious.

The shadow did not respond, and neither did Jon. It gazed, and so did he.

Georgie had a flat, and a cat, and a girlfriend, and a job or two, and she could not wake herself or Jon, and she could not move against the current. "Leave us alone!" she demanded, because the shadow could not see her like it could see all else, and she could not wake anyone, and she could not move.

But her voice echoed hollowly against the metal, and the shadow did not respond.

The dissection room was cold and empty, except for herself and Jon, who bled and bled and bled, who had too many eyes. Except for the current and the thing within it, that flowed ever stronger, ever more implacable. Except for the shadow behind Jon, that watched and drank of the current, terrible and unblinking.

"Jon," Georgie said, small. "Wake up."

He didn't. And neither did she, until morning came, and she opened her eyes to an empty feeling of wetness on her cheeks.

* * *

The dissection room remained empty the next night, as it had every night, except for Georgie and Jon, and the current and the shadow. No bodies, no dead woman, no friend slipping away from her, if she didn't count Jon. No fear. Only rolling waves of something that may have been numb resignation, may have been frustration, reverberating within the hollow parts of her mind, reverberating throughout the current around her, like she was the one bleeding and bleeding and bleeding, outward into the undertow.

Georgie had never been a lucid dreamer, but her thoughts were clear, and her eyes turned where she directed them. She saw Jon's too-many eyes and the edges of the shadow behind him, saw cold metal tables and stone gray walls. She didn't want to see. She wanted this to stop. It wouldn't stop, if untrustworthy avatars were to be believed. She wanted this to stop, but no amount of pleading and demanding stirred Jon's statuesque form. He was there at all times, even when he wasn't, and he always returned, even when he left.

Georgie tried to move and made no headway against the current. She tried to move and wondered how long it would take to become habit.

The thought was cold, like the metal, like the tile. Was weighty in her limbs, like molten lead. She could lay down with it and not get up. Like habit was sandpaper and grit, scraping her down into nothing.

No, Georgie thought, clear like an autumn sky. She'd pushed past that before, past the weight in her limbs, past the all-encompassing hollow spaces beneath her skull. She'd gotten up. She had a flat, and a cat, and a girlfriend, and a job or two, and she was not going to lose that. She was not going to _resign_ herself to this. Melanie had found a way out. Georgie could too.

But she could not move. She could not move, and yet something had changed, before. She'd made it change. She'd looked at Jon and seen more of him.

How had she done that?

Georgie looked again. Saw the lacerations, the bruises, the blood. Saw the eyes, unblinking. Saw Jon's edges and the shadow's, silhouette set against something terrible. Georgie looked, and this time, she paid attention to how, thoughts burning clearer and brighter with every strain, every effort.

Her thoughts, her gaze, followed the current and found Jon. Found the way it wrapped around him, unseen and yet ever-present. Her thoughts, her gaze had moved alongside something else and found places to slip through with little resistance, like drafting in the wake of something greater.

There was no room for fear, here in Georgie's head, and she could not move, and she could not resign herself to this.

And so she moved.

She was aware of feet and muscles and a body meant for moving, and she sidestepped. It felt like breaking for air, and she thought she might have staggered into an examination table, had this been anything other than a dream. But she continued to find purchase, and she continued to move, one painstaking step after another. She followed the current and the thing within it, followed twists and turns of what was not really a current, and then all of Jon's eyes were centimeters away from hers.

"Wake up," Georgie said, desperate, and she had hands for grasping, and they found his shoulders and sank into the shadow's edges there. The current pulsed around them, tingling against her legs, her back. "Come on, wake up, Jon."

He didn't respond. He didn't move. He stared and stared and stared, from eyes and eyes and eyes, and blood oozed, from wounds that she could see and wounds that she could not, and if Georgie had a stomach here, it was turning.

"I have to go," Georgie said, and she didn't know why the words twisted within her like so. She'd made her peace with it all. With the fact that he couldn't be saved. She couldn't work herself into knots over it, not anymore. "If you're not going to wake up, then... I have to go. I'm sorry."

There was a door behind him. The way out, Georgie hoped, and though the shadow remained at Jon's back and turned his edges into indistinct lines, she didn't see it, when she looked at the door. She clung to Jon's shoulders a second longer, willing him to wake up.

He didn't.

Georgie pushed through the door and left, the glass shivering with the force of her shove, and the door did not open to the rest of the university, and nor did she open her eyes to her bed, to Melanie and the Admiral. The door opened to... she wasn't sure, exactly.

It looked like a courtyard, and it looked like a dirt road, and it looked like a riverbank. Something pulsed sickeningly behind Georgie's eyes as she tried to make sense of it, and she might have staggered again, had this not been a dream. It looked like a London alleyway, and it looked like a beach, and she forced herself to keep taking steps, one after another. Even though the current flowed backwards now. Back to the dissection room. Back to Jon.

She just had to find the right direction, Georgie thought. There was no current to follow here, unless she wanted to go back, but there had to be another way. Maybe if she kept walking. Kept trying, kept moving.

She moved. She walked. She got nowhere in particular, because it looked like a riverbank, and it looked like quarry, and it looked like tarmac. But there was no room for fear, here in her head, and so Georgie moved. Until:

"That was quick," a voice said, soft and familiar.

Georgie recognized it instantly, and no boiling hot anger surfaced in response, as she stopped walking alongside what may have been a forest. Her voice was still cold when she answered. "What are you doing here?"

A man stood on a road, paved and dark. Or, at least, she thought it was a road. It might have been an inky expanse of night sky. The man's mouth was twisted into half a smile, and it looked abjectly sad. He had his hands in his pockets. "I've sensed you for a little while now," Oliver said. "But this is the first time I've been able to find you. Congratulations. You broke from the Watcher."

Georgie wasn't afraid of him. She didn't particularly want to kill him, either. But she'd been unable to move until she had, and then she'd kept moving with no destination around her, and frustration rested always at her core, these days. "Either explain what that means and tell me something _useful_ ," Georgie said, "or get out of my way."

Oliver's smile didn't quite fade, but it became so solemn that it might as well have. "We're not all dreamers, you know," he said, and the dark pavement remained fixed beneath his feet. Georgie almost asked him how he managed that. "Though dreams are a favored form of our patron. I imagine it had something to do with your encounter with Jon's patron. The Watcher ensnared you before you could begin to awaken, and so dreams are the path along which you evolved. There's no changing it now, even though you no longer require the Eye to enter your dreams."

"Stop," Georgie said, hot. "I'm not evolving. I'm finding a way out."

"There is no way out," Oliver said, even.

Georgie released a hiss of frustration and stepped forward, as if to move past him, and it may have been a riverbank. It may have been a road lined with the dead trees of winter. It made her head hurt, inasmuch as she had a head, here.

"I'm not saying this to upset you, Georgie," Oliver added. "The more you fight it, the longer it will hurt. I-- there's nothing I can do to help, really, but... "

"Shut up," Georgie said, and Oliver gave her a pensive look. His eyes were set deep into their sockets, half-obscured by shadows. "Just because _you've_ given up doesn't mean that _I_ have to. If I can... break away from Jon's Eye thing, then I can wake myself up."

Oliver shuffled his feet against the pavement, hands still buried deep in his pockets. "And yet," he said, "you'll return."

" _Ugh_ ," Georgie said and moved past him.

She didn't plan to look back, because back was the direction in which the current flowed, and it was not the way out. But Oliver's voice carried, as he called out to her. "Could I at least ask you one question?"

Georgie's feet came to a halt. She wasn't quite sure what was under them. It might have been pavement. It might have been grass.

"What does it look like, to you?" Oliver asked.

Georgie didn't need to ask what _it_ was. She glanced back, over her shoulder, and found Oliver's deep-set eyes fixed intently upon her. It shivered down her spine, like the trickling of mountain water. She got the sense, then, that he was seeing something entirely different than she was. That he may not have even been standing on a road, in his own point of view. What did he see, then, when he looked at her?

"A river," she said, reluctant. "But I don't see it? I feel it."

Oliver considered this. His gaze pulled inward, and the shiver left Georgie's spine. "Hmm," Oliver said. "Interesting."

The polite thing would have been to reciprocate, at the very least, and Oliver seemed unfailingly polite. But apparently it didn't occur to him, until Georgie asked, impatiently. "And you?"

"Oh," Oliver said, blinking, and a shadow crossed his face, weary and resigned. "Veins."

He didn't elaborate, and Georgie didn't ask him to. She didn't want to know. She didn't even know why she'd asked. But she would not look so resigned. She would not give up so easily. She turned around and kept walking, and Oliver didn't speak again, didn't follow her. She wasn't sure when she left him behind, because the space in which she walked looked like a riverbank, and it looked like a highway, and it looked like an ocean floor, and it looked like a mountain trail. It looked like too many places at once and none of them at all.

Georgie kept walking, kept moving, and the current flowed inexorably backwards, and she did not find a way out.

Not even when she opened her eyes to her bedroom, to the faint glint of morning and to Melanie's slow breathing, and she heaved a tired sigh and resolved to try again, the next night.

* * *

The dream remained empty the next night, like all of the places that flashed in and out of her awareness were as hollow as the spaces in Georgie's head. She didn't encounter Oliver again, and she didn't know where she walked. But it was endless and ill-defined, and eventually Georgie had to acknowledge that it wasn't working.

She stopped at the riverbank and watched it flow, even though she couldn't quite see it, from where she stood. The current flowed inexorably backwards, and her thoughts turned in that direction, wondering. There was nothing there, she reminded herself. Only the dissection room and Jon, but she could do nothing. She had to find a way out, something to break her free from these dreams in the same way that she'd apparently broken free of the Eye. 

Except moving and walking lead to nowhere, and--

The current flowed inexorably backwards, Georgie thought. Back towards the dissection room, towards Jon. The current flowed inexorably backwards, and the thing within it looked back at the shadow that drank from its waters. It looked back, she thought, and it contorted around Jon, and if Georgie could not walk far enough to find the way out, if she could break herself free from the Eye...

She turned around.

Georgie didn't know how far she had walked, last night and this night, but it took no time at all, to reach the dissection room once more. Like the current hurried along, faster and faster with every passing moment, and Georgie's thoughts followed in its draft. The medical science building loomed, and Georgie hesitated for a long moment before she pushed through the door.

The dissection room remained empty, as it did every night, except for the cold metal and the stone walls, except for Jon. His back was to her, as Georgie approached, but his eyes still watched. The shadow was behind him, even though Georgie was too, and she shuddered as she circled him. As she followed the twists and turns of what was not really a current, as she followed the roiling vibration of the thing within in.

She stood in front of Jon again. He watched her and watched and watched, and he bled and bled and bled. He had too many eyes.

Georgie could move, but it led to nowhere. Her thoughts were clear like still waters, and clearer still, when she was no longer tethered to this room. She couldn't find the way out as she was, and she wondered what would happen, if she kept walking and walking and walking. If the same look of resignation would settle onto her face, as it had Oliver's.

She would _not_ resign herself to this, Georgie thought. And neither would Jon. There was something catastrophic centered around him, Melanie had explained. And if he could just break free, then maybe...

"Wake up," Georgie said, and her hands found Jon's shoulders again.

Jon didn't respond, same as before, but Georgie had made something change, more than once, and she knew how to do it, and her fingers sank into the edges of shadow that painted Jon's form. The current twisted and turned and flowed, restless, and she followed where it lead. It followed her too, rising up towards her chest, her neck. It trickled down her arms, following contours of skin and muscle, and Georgie kept her hands locked on Jon's shoulders.

The shadow behind him burned, unblinking and terrible.

"Come on, Jon," Georgie said. "Wake up."

He watched. He bled. The current wound up her arms and twisted into the edges of shadow.

A full-body tremor rocked through Jon's form, and with it came a sound like cracking glass. His many eyes blinked.

Georgie's heart leapt, and the current flowed and flowed and flowed. "You've got this," she said breathlessly, and her fingers squeezed. If she could break free, then so could Jon, and she knew how to do it. If he could get free, then maybe this all could stop. Georgie wouldn't lose anyone or anything else. "Wake up," she said again, like a mantra, and vibration tingled against her skin. "Open your eyes, Jon."

His many eyes blinked, and his real eyes would soon follow. Georgie knew that. She just had to try. Another tremor followed, Jon's shoulders hunching with it, and Georgie let her hands slide down. Brought them together the clasp around one of Jon's hands, the one that bled a little less. She held it tightly between her own, because she'd pulled herself up past the weight in her limbs and the all-encompassing hollow spaces beneath her skull, and Jon had helped her to do that, and Melanie had found a way out, and Jon could pull himself up too.

"Wake up," Georgie said, like a prayer.

Jon shuddered. The eyes blinked. The shadow burned, and the current roiled, and glass cracked somewhere, and Georgie felt something move beneath her fingers, like a buckling of skin. The sick sensation of it coiled down her spine and twisted up in her throat, and she pulled one of her own hands away to examine what it was, elation bleeding out into a flat kind of numb.

Jon's left hand wasn't as scarred as the right, but a few holes within it bled. And Georgie watched, Jon's hand nestled against hers, as one of the jagged holes in his palm warped. As it grew and buckled and tore itself into something else, as it elongated into the staring, unblinking shape of yet another eye, red at the edges and starting to bleed.

Georgie stared, numb, confused.

At last, Jon moved of his own accord. His breathing picked up, his shoulders trembled, his head shifted. All of his eyes looked down at the new eye embedded in his palm, and a choked sound of agony wrenched itself out of his mouth.

And then he crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.

* * *

That night, Basira dreamed of smoke, a haze of it that got into her eyes and lungs. The building burned in front of her, a blazing inferno, and she wanted to step away from its oppressive heat. She couldn't.

Her hands burned too, acrid raw pain that throbbed through her palms and lanced down her arms. She knew this, Basira thought, distant and yet all too present, all too consumed by the fiery aches in her hands. By a growing sense of unease, of a world shifted in a direction she didn't like, couldn't make sense of. She knew what this was. Clapham, arson, except this wasn't a disjointed nightmare born of unfortunate daytime reminders.

It was clear, even though the smoke wasn't. She knew where she was, could see it plain as day, as the blazing fire burned and beckoned, as her hands stung and stung. She knew that she was stuck in a dream, and that something watched, somewhere behind her, a prickle up her spine. She couldn't quite turn around to look, but she knew.

It made no sense. She'd stopped dreaming like this, after she'd joined up at the Institute, and eventually she'd figured out why. She shouldn't have been here. She shouldn't have been dreaming like this. Basira coughed and tried to move, but the fire held her transfixed, and her hands ached. There was no one else here, except the presence at her back, and yet she heard an echo of an ash-filled voice, heard the crinkling snap of burning paper.

The fire burned, and her hands _hurt_ , and the fire spread. Not to her, though. It spread to other buildings nearby, and it crawled over oil-soaked pavement around her, and it snapped hungrily as it did so. It promised pain, and not her own, this time. It sang of hurt, and Basira's hands had burned so much that layers of skin peeled away, that wisps of blood seeped through in the moments before the heat devoured them.

Something watched behind her, and she knew what it was, and yet she did not turn around.

Instead, as the heat roared so much that every inch of her skin felt exposed and raw, Basira watched the buildings burn, watched her hands burn and bleed, and found herself entirely unable to look away.

* * *

That night, Daisy dreamed of a rain-soaked road and a long, low note. Her chest ached fiercely, and her hand ached dully, and she stared at the grimy van. Something pounded rapidly beneath her aching chest, like a rabbit's flight-ready heart, and the low note rang above the pattering of rain.

Not a note, Daisy thought, disoriented. A moan, slow and rolling, a vibration that made her hair stand on end. It sang out in her peripheral, and with difficulty, she turned away from the van. Saw the coffin, in the middle of the road, heard the clinking of metal as a lock clicked and the chains around the coffin began to come undone.

This wasn't right. She was aware of that, like one might recall a passing childhood memory, and the rain-slicked knowledge wanted to slip her grasp. She held onto it, because her spine ran chill with the sense of being watched, and something like hackles rose, flooding her mind with a burst of certainty, flooding her chest with a pained wheeze. This wasn't right. She remembered going to sleep. She was dreaming.

She shouldn't have been dreaming.

 _He_ was here, Daisy thought, as the chains fell away from the coffin, and its lid rattled. He shouldn't have been able to see her, and yet she felt his presence nearby, and yet she couldn't look away from the coffin. Its lid rose, and Daisy couldn't let herself be _prey_ , and yet she balked, as she reached for the pounding of blood behind her aching chest, between her ringing ears.

No-- looking was better. If she could just turn around, if she could find the one who watched her, if they could just wake up or at least get away from here...

The lid unfolded completely, and the moaning fell away, and Daisy couldn't quite see the stairs within. But she saw the hand. Uniform-clad up to its wrist, gloves stained even darker, it emerged from the shadows within, and Daisy's chest ached unbearably at the sight, like her lungs were collapsing inward, like her throat was caving in with it.

The hand didn't grasp at the edges of the coffin, didn't pull itself up. It unfurled its fingers and beckoned to her, slow and certain, and Daisy stood there with her chest throbbing and her heart thumping. She could not move her feet, and so she watched.

* * *

That night, Melanie's dreams changed and tapered off, clouding like a sight beheld at a great distance through a shrinking, spinning, unsteady lens.

When she awoke in the morning, she could hardly remember a thing about them.

* * *

That night, Martin dreamed of his flat. His old one, from a few years ago, in disarray after days and nights spent in a haze of fear. He sat on his sofa and watched the door, and the knocking came again, steady and slow and implacable.

He blinked. He couldn't breathe right, through the smell and the shaky fear, except that something was wrong. The person at the door knocked, and Martin flinched. His eyes flicked to places he'd stopped up and blocked off, places where those things might come through, except that was wrong, too.

He wasn't supposed to be here. Where was Jon?

Jon... he was _dreaming_.

Martin got to his feet and stared at the door, and the knocking came, relentless, eternal. But he wasn't really here, Martin reminded himself. It was only a memory, playing out at night, because he remembered going to sleep with Jon in his arms. That didn't explain why he was here regardless. Because Martin felt the Eye, felt something watching him, intent and hungry, and though he had never experienced these dreams before, he knew it when he felt it.

But how? Why? Assistants didn't get the dreams, they'd figured out. Like the Eye spared them. But no, that didn't make sense. Like they _couldn't_ get those dreams, for whatever reason.

But a strange dream steeped in spine-chill of the Eye it was, and Jon should have been here, then, and yet he was nowhere to be found in the flat, when Martin looked.

The knocking came again.

Martin stopped searching. He went still and returned his gaze to the door, and after a moment, he moved forward, slow, cautious. It wasn't worms, he knew. It wasn't a torturous death or something even worse.

Martin opened the door.

Jon stood in the hallway, swaying like a drunk man under the fluorescents. He was covered in _eyes_ , wide open and unblinking, and he was bleeding, like all of his scars had been ripped open and then some. Alarm caught in Martin's throat, and Jon staggered forward, his mouth working soundlessly.

"Mart--" was all he managed, before he collapsed into Martin's arms.

Martin caught him and held him tight, but the doorway was wrong, and the hallway was wrong, and panic spiked blindingly through Martin's thoughts. He jolted, arms still full of something, and he couldn't quite see. He didn't know where he was, except that something soft was underneath him, and something -- someone -- was thrashing in his grip. It only took Martin a moment longer to register that he was awake, that he was in their hotel room and in bed with Jon, and then every thought was driven out of his head.

Because Jon was _screaming_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Dream-related unreality and brief body horror.


	19. Chapter 19

Martin liked to think of himself as a rational person. He was good under pressure, for the most part, and able to lay out and follow steps and contingencies to get from one point to another. He was good at taking care of people, too, and he knew how to think his way through a problem.

But Jon screamed, and Martin's head ached with it, with a consuming and instantaneous panic. He might have been back in the safe house, with the fire snapping and the statement burning and Jon crying out with the agony of it. It was the worst sound that Martin had ever heard, one he'd never wanted to hear again, and wood smoke clogged his nose and coated the back of his throat as he scrambled up in the bed and struggled to get on top of the sheets, hovering over Jon with his hands uselessly outstretched as he asked, wildly, "Jon! What's wrong, what--"

Jon didn't answer. Perhaps he tried to. He choked on air and whimpered, but nothing came out of a throat already raw, except another cry.

Martin's gaze ran frantically over him, but there was no blood, no eyes, like in the dream. Jon's scars stood out starkly, though, inflamed and red, and Martin stared at them. Then Jon's hands started scrabbling at the scars, like he was trying to rip his own skin off, even with his bandaged fingers. Martin caught him by the wrists and remembered the cabin with a shudder. "No, no, don't-- are you hurt?" Stupid question, of course he was, but Martin couldn't see it with his eyes, and then he remembered something else.

He tried to _see_ , tried to access that scratch and scrape of knowing that now rested like an insatiable itch somewhere between his ears.

A spiked wall of pain met him, throbbing through the bruise on his head, and Martin nearly doubled over with the tumbling of nausea through his stomach.

The door opened, because Basira and Jon had gotten and exchanged extra keys when they'd arrived -- an appropriate level of paranoia, given, well, everything. Basira's voice was outside in the hallway, low and quick in response to a different, unfamiliar voice. The night manager, Martin knew suddenly. Daisy moved through the room like a soft shadow and flicked a lamp on, as Jon keened again and writhed beneath Martin, tears leaking out of horribly red eyes squeezed tight against whatever it was.

"What happened?" Daisy asked, brusque.

"I don't know!" Martin said, panicked, and he couldn't stand the feeling of Jon's wrists tugging against his hands anymore. He let go, cautiously, but Jon didn't return to digging into his skin. His hands grasped at the bed beneath him, and Martin nearly reached out again at the sight of the bandaged hand squeezing at something like so. He stopped himself and glanced around, locating Daisy. "I just-- woke up, and he was... there was this weird dream, and--"

"Yeah," Daisy said, hesitating at the far side of the bed, a little more distant from where Jon was tangled up in the sheets and Martin kneeled next to him. Daisy's eyes were storm dark as she looked down at Jon and took a trembling breath. "Me too."

The dreams, then. But _why?_ Jon kept whimpering, and Martin could hardly think straight. "Jon," he said, desperately, bringing his hands to Jon's face, barely letting his fingers touch skin, like that could make it worse.

"Hurts," Jon gasped out finally, and his eyes flicked open, seeking Martin out, wet and equally panicked. His good hand latched on to Martin's forearm, his grip tight enough to leave bruises, and he choked out a pleading, " _Martin_ ," on a sob.

Martin couldn't bear it. "What hurts?" he asked softly, his throat almost closing around the nausea leaping up from his stomach.

But Jon couldn't answer, as another cry shuddered through him, although he clenched his jaw so tightly around it that it only emerged as a whine. His grip on Martin's arm tightened even more. His eyes squeezed shut, then snapped open again, traveling wildly. " _Daisy_ ," he croaked, another plea, when he caught sight of her.

In the corner of his eye, Martin saw Daisy twitch, like she was about to move and then thought better of it. "I'm here," she said, her voice so soft that it sounded strange, coming from her. "Deep breaths, Sims," she added. The words emerged stiff, with the effort of sounding calm. "Is it the dream?"

Jon's head jerked in a nod, and then he convulsed again, back arching against the mattress as he screwed his eyes shut and sobbed. Martin felt it like a stabbing pain behind his eyes, and the hand not occupied as a lifeline for Jon fluttered uselessly near Jon's face.

"You getting anything?" Daisy asked, and it took Martin a distracted moment to work out that she was talking to him.

"I don't--" Martin said, and he couldn't _see,_ even with his eyes fixed desperately on Jon. "I can't--"

There was a flurry of movement behind them, and then Basira entered the edges of his vision, on the close side of the bed, opposite from Daisy. She had something long in her hands, and she leaned in, wrapping the scarf around Jon's eyes and behind his head in quick, firm motions.

And Jon relaxed, with a great shuddering breath, sinking into the mattress and the pillows with another small sob. He didn't look better, not at all, but no longer did it seem like waves of pain were rolling through him unceasingly.

Martin stared. In the sudden silence, he became aware of the very faint sound of whirring, coming from elsewhere in the room. From the duffel bag in the corner. "How did you--"

Basira shrugged as she stepped back. "Just trying to follow the weird logic here," she said. "If you can't remove the eyes, then covering them's the next best thing, I guess. And something fucked just happened to our dreams, and that's an Eye thing, so..."

Right, Martin thought numbly. Of course. He leaned back on his heels, though he didn't extricate his forearm from Jon's grip. He couldn't quite catch his breath.

"Told the manager it was a PTSD thing and convinced him not to call an ambulance," Basira added. "But we might need to move again, if we keep drawing attention to ourselves."

Jon shifted at the words, like he was sinking further into the bed. "We can figure that out later," Martin snapped, without really meaning to, and he softened his voice. "Jon, are you-- how are you feeling now?"

Jon's chest still heaved, his breathing unsteady, his scars still inflamed. His head was tilted up towards the ceiling, face tear-stained and strained, and he didn't move, but he trembled like the cold air of oncoming winter had found its way into the room. Martin feverishly adjusted the sheets around him, careful near the bandaged hand. He tried not to look at it. He did so anyway, and he thought about the cabin, and he wanted to retch.

"Awful," Jon murmured, dazedly, his voice little more than a ragged croak.

"Can't imagine how bad it is, if you admit it," Daisy said. In the corner of his eye, Martin saw her staring down at the floor.

The ghost of a smile might have crossed Jon's face, for a moment, but his face screwed up again, under the makeshift blindfold. "I... the dreams, I... remember them. I saw you, all of you, and, and Georgie, and... I _saw_..." Whatever it was, he didn't seem able to say it, and even in the quiet, his raspy voice was barely audible. "It _hurt_. I still..."

"Still feel it?" Basira asked, a frown embedded in her face, and when Jon nodded, she added, "Like it's too much?"

Jon nodded again, wearily. "But... _more_ than that," he said, and he frowned too, behind the blindfold. His voice grew smaller, rather desperate, rather exhausted. "I... don't know how to explain it."

Basira folded her arms, thoughtful. "Something to call Georgie about, then," she said. "See if anything happened on her end, since she's the only other example we've got of these dreams changing."

At last, Jon seemed to realize that he was still clinging to Martin's arm. But all his uninjured hand did was loosen and travel down, seeking out Martin's hand instead, and Martin tangled their fingers together as he ran a nervous gaze over Jon, his eyes lingering on the reddened scars. Jon looked and sounded even worse, as if he was only a few steps away from bleeding like he had in Martin's dream, as if his throat was even more wrecked. Martin remembered the cabin, felt his own throat clog with smoke, and his stomach turned over on itself.

Martin pulled his hand away. "The rest of the first aid stuff's in the car," he said, clambering mechanically off the bed, and Jon's head followed his movements. They had some tucked away in their luggage, and Martin was still in pajamas, and it was too early for anything except the thinnest of daylight, but... "I'd feel better if we had it here? I'll just pop down and get it."

He couldn't sense when Jon was in trouble, and he couldn't intuit something as simple as covering one's eyes, but he could damn well make sure that they were well-stocked, and so Martin retrieved the car keys and his shoes with another mumbled excuse and left.

* * *

Basira watched the door swing shut behind Martin and kept a sigh locked behind her teeth. So much for the buddy system. She had half a mind to follow and let Daisy take over for a bit, because Daisy knew how to handle Jon, except that Daisy was afraid to be alone with him right now, and nothing about the current situation would help that matter, either. But Basira didn't have to suggest anything, as she returned her attention to the bed, to Daisy hovering awkwardly on the side farthest from Jon.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Daisy said, like she knew how much the offer meant, like it would make up for the fact that she was eager to be gone.

Jon had pushed himself up on his elbows with difficulty, as Martin left, and his shoulders relaxed. "Thank you," he whispered, earnest.

"Don't mention it," Daisy said and left just as quickly as Martin, and the troubled look on Jon's face grew more pronounced. He struggled to sit up, and Basira moved to help, and she forgot what a blindfold actually did, until Jon flinched away from her hands.

"Sorry," Basira said. "Just me."

It looked like Jon wanted to get to his feet too, fumbling with the sheets, but Basira left a hand on his shoulder for a moment, heavy with warning. "Take it easy for a bit," she said.

Jon frowned in her direction, but he didn't get up, as Basira circled the bed. She made her way to the duffel bag in the corner, following the faint mechanical hum, and then she stepped back with one of the tape recorders in hand. It was on, because of course it was, and Basira debated with herself for a moment. But she kept her fingers off of the record button and returned to Jon's side, pushing the thing under his good hand. His fingers wrapped around it at once, and she wasn't sure if he relaxed because it had some weird metaphysical effect on him or because it was just a placebo kind of thing. Maybe there was no difference.

Basira sought out one of the armchairs next. She pulled it forward and collapsed into it and reached for her phone, and then she remembered that it was in the other room.

"Are you going to call Georgie?" Jon asked, like he knew. His voice was quiet and raw and thick, like speaking hurt.

Basira settled deeper into the chair. The cushions squeaked beneath her. "Phone's next door," she said. "Don't feel like getting up just yet."

"Mine's there," Jon said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the nightstand.

"Okay," Basira said, voice approaching a threat. "But I told you we're taking it easy for a bit."

Jon looked vaguely affronted, behind the scarf. He sat on the bed with his legs folded underneath the sheets, hair an undone mess, scars bright and red. "I think I prefer drill sergeant Basira," he said, and something in the slant of his voice told Basira that it was supposed to be a joke. But Jon frowned again, visibly cringing. "Ah... sorry. I don't mean that."

"Well," Basira said, dry, because she got the vague sense that she'd hurt his feelings, somehow, and so she could take a little hurt feelings in turn, "I could tell you to run laps around the hotel, but you might just get kidnapped or something, so..."

Jon almost smiled, beneath the scarf. "Contrary to what it may seem," he said, and even through the tired humor, there was an edge to the words, "I'm not a wilting damsel."

Basira had never seen it directly, but she'd seen one of the bodies that she and Daisy had hidden. Not bloodied and broken, like the ones that Daisy had killed, but empty, in a way that defied easy description. Like a husk, and she wasn't sure if everything of substance in it had been burned away or drained. "Uh-huh," she said. She knew what he could do now, but it might have sounded more convincing had his voice not been a few seconds away from disappearing entirely underneath the raw croak. "I think I'll have an easier time believing that when I actually see you in action."

"You've seen _plenty_ ," Jon said, less offended and more exaggerated.

"What, asking really leading questions?" Basira asked, and she shifted in the chair, folding one leg underneath the other, like she was settling in for a wait. "I'm terrified."

Jon chuckled, small but sincere, but his head drifted down, his hidden gaze fixed on the tape recorder. He held his bandaged hand very carefully, and the other twitched around the recorder, restless and uneasy.

He didn't speak for a while, and neither did Basira, though she did miss her phone, suddenly, which at least always provided the illusion of something to do. She'd even take one of the less-than-stellar books that Martin had given her. But there was no way that she was getting up, now that she'd committed to the bit, and she tried to master her impatience by idly cataloguing every corner of the room, like she would an area of potential threat. It felt ridiculous, when the whole thing was very plush and innocuous.

"Do you remember what I said?" Jon piped up abruptly, and his rough voice nearly faltered, before he cleared his throat. He didn't look up. "About the door in my mind?"

"Yeah," Basira said, cautious.

Jon's frown was deep and perturbed, underneath the blindfold. "It feels like someone took a hammer to it," he murmured, which did nothing to ease Basira's antsy agitation. "And now... the water level is rising. I don't know if it will stop." His tired voice picked up speed, took on the quality of a hasty confession. "I... know things. Some of them... about you, just by being in proximity to you. I'm sorry, I'm... trying not to, but..."

Well... what was one more development, at this point? "Okay," Basira made herself say. "Whatever. Just don't tell me about it, then." Jon's head tilted at her, as if perplexed. "I mean it. I don't want to know."

Jon exhaled with force, like he'd been bracing himself. His voice turned wry. "Ignorance _is_ occasionally appealing."

Basira snorted. "Tell me about it." She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair and studied him. It made her skin crawl, a creeping, itching chill, the idea that someone could just _know_ things about her, that information about her dripped from a leaky dam. But she owed him for Daisy, and she couldn't see the red, red eyes behind the scarf, and so she swallowed down any number of things that she could say. "Is it the Eye?" she asked instead. "Could you... distract it?"

Jon gave her a look that was very clearly baffled, even blindfolded.

"It wants to know things, yeah?" Basira said. "Experiences and stuff. You've still got those statements?"

She'd never seen color leave someone's face so fast. She almost went for the nearby bin, but Jon took a shaky breath and mastered himself. "Yes," he said, reluctant, and his head twitched in the direction of the duffel bag.

He was afraid of them, Basira realized. Of something as relatively benign and simple as stale old written statements, even after everything. The statements that she'd sent, Basira thought hollowly. She hadn't checked them thoroughly, and the world might have ended as a result. It might be ending anyway, if the angry scars were anything to go by.

"Just a thought," Basira said, dismissive. "And on second thought, they might not be enough anyway."

Which was also the wrong thing to say, because if those weren't enough, then what _would_ be? There was no good answer to that, and Jon knew it, and Basira knew it, and she didn't know when she'd started thinking in insane and foolhardy contingencies. Taking statements from random passers-by was off the table, but those weird fear tapes certainly seemed to achieve one thing or another, and Jon was convinced that there was something meaningful about them. Maybe there'd be value in a detour to find other avatars and pull what information they could, because Elias wasn't the only threat out there, and Basira didn't even know where to begin, where the stirring of actual fear gods was concerned.

She should have known better, after their near-disastrous clash with the Hunt, and it seemed a bit much, to think that they could do something about fear itself. But she couldn't just let her attention lapse again.

"You didn't send those other tapes," Jon said, quiet. "It's entirely possible that Jonah's ritual found its way in through other means."

Basira sighed, tired and irritated. "I don't want to know what you know about me," she said, hard.

Jon stiffened. "I--" he said, rather surprised, like he hadn't noticed what he was doing. His fingers tightened around the recorder, in a way that must have dug into his skin. "Sorry."

And before Basira could tell him to stop saying that, Jon's phone rang.

* * *

As it turned out, it was very cold outside, now that they were just shy of November, and pajamas didn't cut it. Martin shivered his way down to the car park and considered turning back empty-handed, but with the blast of outdoor air came a clearer head and the mortifying realization that he'd just walked out after Jon had woken up screaming in pain. _Christ_ , what was wrong with him?

He could at least come back with something in hand, and-- what? Make sure that none of Jon's wounds had started festering?

The trunk of Daisy's car was still stuffed with the small arsenal of supplies from the cabin. Martin grabbed a few of the first aid kids and bags full of medical supplies that he'd gotten from the village shop, and he took a moment to stuff as much as he could into fewer bags. He was so determinedly occupied with the motions of it that he didn't quite notice the air warping and buzzing behind him, the way it crept into his ears like the onset of motion sickness, until:

"Penny for your thoughts?" a low voice said, accompanied by a long, grating creak.

Martin jumped and spun around, branding one swinging bag of supplies like a weapon. His mind went immediately to the actual weapons that were buried underneath the trunk's false bottom, but an incongruent yellow door was nestled into the brick of the nearby hotel, and Helen lazed against the nearest car, two spaces over, with an easy grin and a disorienting wink.

"Helen," Martin sighed, letting the bag swing to a halt. "Jesus. Don't _do_ that."

"It's not _my_ fault you Eye types are so blind," Helen said, her eyes rolling back into her skull. The whites weren't actually whites, and Martin's stomach twisted.

He set the bag on the ground next to the others and looked Helen up and down, not moving forward, not moving away. He knew the gist of what had happened a few days ago, and he looked for it now, in Helen's eyes and posture. Anything aggressive, anything to let him know that he should probably be calling for Jon or Daisy right about now. And he'd been the one to suggest the buddy system. Go figure.

But it wasn't like Martin was without some firepower of his own, and after a moment, he _looked_ too. And received a twisting, nauseating pain somewhere behind his eyes for his troubles, like something scraped right up against his frontal bone and tried its very best to slant the whole thing to the right.

Helen chuckled and folded her long arms. Martin didn't even bother trying to track her fingers, as he blinked and tried to clear his head. "Oh, you're _adorable_ , darling," Helen said. "I see why Jon is so besotted with you."

It managed to sound condescending, and Martin sighed. Helen didn't look particularly murderous or hungry, and nothing really seemed off, from what he could tell, except that it was impossible to _look_ directly at Helen without his metaphorical eyes wanting to crisscross.

So Martin stepped forward around Daisy's car and, after a moment, mirrored Helen's position, leaning back against the car. The empty parking space between them was really only an illusion of safe distance, he knew, but he didn't think Helen was here for any reason other than being maddening and cryptic, like usual. Maybe it doubled as a little light feeding.

"And you're here to commentate on my love life?" Martin asked.

"Not at all," Helen said. "Though I suppose it's related, given your... abilities."

Martin sighed again. Of course she was here for that. "You know," he said, "the way you spy on us is a _little_ creepy."

Helen didn't deny it. Her grin stretched, just short of too wide, and she tilted her head, a rolling motion that wasn't quite right, given the contours and dimensions of her neck. "If I didn't," she said, "who knows what would have happened to your dear little Archivist?"

"Yeah, well, Daisy was there too," Martin said, automatic, and the pupils of Helen's eyes disappeared with another roll. "But... thanks, I guess, for saving him."

He did mean that, and he didn't mean for it come out in such a lackluster way. It was just annoying, the way the Distortion's presence buzzed in his awareness and made it harder to hold on to clear thought, harder to see. Not to mention, every second he spent here was another second for Jon to think that Martin had walked out on him rather than deal with what had just happened.

"Well," Helen said, a tad more biting, "given the reception that seems to have garnered, I don't know why I bother. But," she added, lofty, "you're welcome."

Martin chewed on it for a second and tried again. "Really," he said, with a little more feeling, "thanks." And he added, quickly, "That doesn't mean I want your monster advice, though."

One of Helen's long fingers tapped at the air, where she had it folded up. It was a jarring little movement that seemed to reverberate throughout all of her, even though Martin couldn't quite follow it. "Even when it's offered _freely_?" Helen said. "Most others would just try to kill you, you know."

Oh, how generous, Martin thought, but he kept himself from saying it. "Somehow I doubt that it's _free_ ," he said instead. She was definitely up to _something_. Jon was right about that.

"You were perfectly happy to accept my help not so long ago," Helen said, a few degrees short of cold.

"That's--" Martin began, then stopped.

He'd been a little more desperate, then, a little too fresh off of watching a world-ending statement burn and Jon nearly burn with it. But it was only this morning that he'd had to witness a similar thing once more, hear a sound he'd never wanted to again, and he hesitated. He hadn't known what to do. Hadn't been able to know. Someone else had figured it out first, even though Martin was supposed to have stronger Beholding abilities now. And yet they'd been less useful than otherwise, lately. Maybe--

No, Martin thought. No, if he was going to get _advice_ , it'd be from Jon. Even Daisy.

"It's just... that's _it_?" Martin said. "You and Jon nearly come to blows, but it's all fine and good, and there's no hard feelings? None at all?"

Helen's eyes narrowed. The patterns within contorted, and Martin tried not to look at them. "Your Archivist is an irritant, yes," Helen said with a shrug. Her shoulders were almost even, and her finger no longer tapped so jarringly. "And quite frankly, I don't know what you see in him. That, however, does not make anything I offer less sincere."

Something defensive coiled in Martin's chest, bristling. "Well, if you hate him so much," he snapped, "why do you keep showing up? What do you want?"

It slipped into his voice before he was aware of it, before he could rein it in. A rush of static, quick and curious and hungry as it layered into the words, and perhaps Helen wasn't expecting it either. As it left his mouth, Martin's stomach dropped, a swooping missed step of surprise, and his jaw moved soundlessly, as if to eat the words back up. But the damage was done.

"I don't want to be alone," Helen said.

Her eyes went wide, and for a moment, there were no patterns within. And then a shadow crossed Helen's gaze, and Martin couldn't see her pupils anymore, even though he hadn't seen her form shift or change. Her shoulders weren't aligned, and her hands were strange and bulbous, and her fingers were long and sharp as she uncoiled her arms.

"Shit," Martin said, shaky. "I'm... I'm so sorry, I didn't mean--"

He yelped as something slammed into the car on either side of him, carving into the metal with a chalkboard scrape that brought acid to the back of his throat. The air over the empty parking spot whistled like it had been cut clean through, and as Martin recoiled back against the car, he couldn't quite see what it was that had him boxed in, except that it bent and warped the air around it, except that it made the bruise on his head throb sickeningly.

"Don't do it again," Helen growled.

The force on either side of him withdrew, leaving long silver scratches in the blue metal of Daisy's car, and Martin let out a trembling breath. It took him a moment to get his thoughts in order, and by the time he did, Helen's form no longer lounged against the car across from him. But the yellow door wasn't quite gone from the brick that cast the car park into its shadow, and Martin turned, gathering his breath back.

"Wait!" he said. "Helen, wait, why haven't you--"

The door slammed shut with an almighty creak, the blast of which rattled about in Martin's brain, and when he blinked, the door was gone.

"-- said anything," Martin finished, his voice small.

Well... Christ. He knew that compulsion didn't guarantee truth, exactly, from how Jon had described it, but it did pull what the speaker believed to be true, and... shit.

"You alright?" a voice asked, somewhere behind him.

Martin spun around with a start and sucked in a shaky breath. "Stop doing that!" he said, to no one in particular, and Daisy arched an eyebrow at him. She looked unperturbed by the cold, even though she didn't have a coat either, and Martin remembered that he was out here in pajamas, and that he'd run out on Jon like a coward, and that Helen had nearly speared him and was, apparently, _lonely_. Well... at least they'd had about two quiet days here. "Sorry, you just... scared me."

"I wasn't the only one," Daisy said, and her eyes flicked to the brick wall beyond, studying, pensive. "Don't worry. Was waiting in the wings in case it got ugly. Didn't think it would, though."

That did make Martin feel a little better, against all odds, and he nodded. "Thanks." His eyes drifted down to the car. To the scratches there, the paint sheared clean away. "Sorry about your car."

"It's fine," Daisy said, with an unaffected shrug. It was weird to have her eyes on him, studying him too. A little too similar to the spine-chilling scrape of the Eye's presence, a little too alien from it in a way that got his nonexistent hackles raised. "Didn't want to let you go off alone."

"Yeah," Martin said, and even though it was to be expected, given that they'd agreed on the buddy system and he'd promptly forgotten, it steadied him a little more. "I wasn't thinking."

Daisy nodded, like she understood. He hoped desperately that she was going to leave it alone, but apparently, she had zero filters. "Upset 'cause you couldn't help Jon?"

Well. Rip the band-aid right off, then. Martin sighed, scuffing his feet against the pavement, before he moved and retrieved the bags full of supplies, his convenient excuse to run off. "I mean," he said, and he didn't intend to sound bitter, and yet, "yeah? Once again, these _powers_ are completely useless."

And Daisy smirked, a hidden thing at the corners of her mouth that nonetheless shone rather brightly. "Sorry," she said, when Martin frowned. "You just remind me of someone." She chuckled to herself, like it was something very funny, before her attention returned to him in full, all too discerning. "He loves you more than anything, you know."

Martin blinked. He opened his mouth, and what left him was something entirely intelligible and rational, along the lines of, "Hrgh."

"Seriously," Daisy said, giving him a pointed look, "you should have heard him moping to me about it, when you were ghosting him." Martin flinched, and Daisy carried on relentlessly. "And you've seen those books of mine, yeah? When I tell you it was a bit much for _me_."

"Oh, um," Martin said, and strange, that the late October air was no longer quite so cold, when his face was so warm. "What did he say?"

Daisy huffed out another laugh. "Ask him yourself." Martin gave her a look that was somewhere between exasperated and pleading, and she ignored it, as she continued. "Point is, what you can do, or can't, it doesn't matter. Only thing that matters is that you're there."

Martin hefted the bags in one hand and studied her in turn. He got the sudden sense that she was speaking about more than just the topic at hand, and that she was extending something. More than just watching his back. "Thanks, Daisy," he said, accepting it, and he took a moment to close the trunk. "And... how are you doing?" he asked, stepping around the car, and he spent a second wondering if the venture would be welcomed. But Daisy was reaching out, so... "You've seemed like you're having a hard time."

Something grew shadowed in Daisy's expression. Martin felt it like a bucket of cold water down his back. "Yeah," Daisy said, her jaw working with it. "You deflect with that when you're uncomfortable, you know? The 'how are you' routine."

Martin blinked at her. "Okay?" he said, oddly defensive. "And _you_ just deflected, so."

Daisy looked a tad sheepish, as her hands found their way into her pockets. "Sorry," she said. "Some stuff's just been... spilling out, lately."

Martin let out a strained laugh, and it tapered away quickly. "Mm," he said, tasting a lingering imprint of static on his tongue, like the pins and needles of a particularly fizzy drink. "Yeah, I get that."

"I bet." Daisy's ponytail flicked around, as she jerked her head towards the pavement that wound around towards the front of the hotel. "Why don't we head back?"

Martin nodded and hefted the bags once more, and he glanced at the brick one last time, at its uniform brown expanse, before following Daisy into the hotel.


	20. Chapter 20

Melanie's hand traced soothing patterns across Georgie's back, and the Admiral nestled up against her hip, but Georgie didn't relax until the ringing stopped and the other end picked up. Until a voice spoke across the line, so hoarse that her own throat twinged in sympathy: "Georgie?"

Jon was alive, at least. Georgie felt marginally less tense. "Hey, Jon," she said, her voice tight. And that was about all that made it out of her.

"That's my cue, I think?" Melanie said, a soft concession in her other ear.

Georgie nodded stiffly, and Melanie took a moment to let her hand wander up and idly brush against Georgie's cheek, before she maneuvered off of the bed. But there was something off about the touch, something jerky and hesitant, and Georgie leaned into it and nearly followed it in concern, before she caught herself.

"Come on, little man," Melanie said, her voice too light and sleepy to betray what she was feeling. "Breakfast."

The Admiral always glued himself to whoever got up first, and the warm weight at Georgie's side disappeared, as Jon's voice rasped across the line again, hesitant, upturned like he was trying to make light of the situation. "I don't suppose you've had any strange dreams lately?"

Melanie made her methodical way out of the bedroom, and the Admiral followed, meowing eagerly. Georgie's eyes remained on empty doorway, tracing the frame, wondering about Melanie. She thought about the dissection room. The cold metal and the gray walls, the current and the thing within it, the shadow and the eyes. Her gaze flicked down to her left hand, as she flexed it and set the phone to speaker and put it down. This first, then whatever had Melanie antsy.

"Jon," Georgie sighed, the name riding out on an weary breath. "How badly are you hurt?"

It was best to be as direct as possible, leaving the least amount of room for dodging the question, and a few long seconds of silence ticked by. "No more than usual," Jon said hoarsely, doing his level best anyway.

Oh, he was so deeply aggravating sometimes. "Would you _stop_ with that," Georgie said, more irritated than she meant to be. "Just give me a straight answer!"

"I wasn't under the impression that you wanted one," Jon said, flat.

The Admiral's food bowl clinked in the distance, and the little man in question meowed in the manner of one starving, loud enough that it drifted down the hallway. Melanie's voice was dry and amused in response, though Georgie couldn't make out the words. It put something heavy in her chest, and it wasn't a bad weight. She heard something on the other end, too, what might have been a door closing. And then a few more seconds of silence ticked by.

Jon said, "I'm sorry. You deserve an answer," at the same time that Georgie said, "Oh god, you're right," and Georgie's mouth clicked shut again.

She got up, too restless to remain in bed. At the door, she stopped and listened for a moment longer, to the soft clatter of Melanie moving about the kitchen, before she slid the door closed. She didn't really know why. Maybe it created an illusion. A sense of containment, even though something whispered at the edges of her senses, like a faint trickle.

"Melanie has accused me of being uncommunicative, lately," Georgie said, as she put her back to the door.

"You?" Jon asked, but it was said too softly to mean ill. "It would be easier to list topics that I _don't_ know your opinion about."

Georgie drifted forward, aimless. The bed was rumpled and unmade, after her jarring return to wakefulness this morning, and she set about fixing it, like that would restore some control over the situation. "Is that a challenge?" she asked, moving the phone and setting it down on the nightstand, but she faltered, before returning to the sheets. It just felt strange, like trying to apply easy words as a salve to something they couldn't fix.

It wasn't helped when Jon audibly hesitated, like he couldn't quite hold on to the thread either.

"Jon," Georgie said, fingers tangled in the sheets, and she blinked and saw the room, saw an eye blinking out of a hand, bleeding too. "What did I do?"

Jon exhaled slowly. The sound was gritty and harsh, like he had the world's worst sore throat. "It might be easier for me to understand if I knew what you were trying to do," he said carefully.

Maybe Georgie hadn't been dreaming as lucidly as she thought. It had made sense when she was there, in the way that all dreams were fact when one was asleep. It had even made sense in the early morning hours, after she'd tried with limited success to do something, change something. She'd gotten too confident, she thought. All because she didn't know when to pull back, when the hollow spaces in her head rang so empty. Even though she was so, so careful at all other times, especially lately -- or, at least, she tried to be.

"I don't know," she said, dubious, and the bed was made haphazardly, distractedly, as she talked. "I was just trying to get the dreams to stop. And I _got_ some control over them. I-- I met Oliver again, in them, and he said that I broke away from your Eye? So I thought, maybe if I could help you get free too, then... it could all stop." She flung the covers over the sheets, forceful and unhappy, and sighed. "It makes no sense, when I say it like that."

The silence on the other end was total, for a long few moments, until: "Then what gave you the impression that it would work?" Jon asked.

It was said too slow and curious to be accusing, but Georgie bristled all the same. "I don't know!" she snapped, and then she caught herself, frowning down at the mess that the bed still remained, and tried to smooth out the covers. She'd been snapping a lot, lately, and it wasn't the same kind of blistering upset that had her wanting to take a knife to a guest in her home, but... "You don't... think it was that _thing_ , do you?"

"I, ah..." Jon said, reluctance so clear that the question was answered anyway. "Perhaps."

Georgie straightened. Her eyes roamed around the bedroom, restless, looking for something else to tidy. It was something she'd learned and taken to heart: that fixing the space around oneself helped to order the mind. Not much, perhaps, but every little handhold made it just a bit easier, when trying to climb out of an impossible hollow. "Then stop coddling me," she said, and god, no wonder Melanie got so annoyed sometimes, "and give it to me straight: what did I do?"

Jon sighed, reluctance still palpable. "I... saw something that I couldn't comprehend," he began, laying it out carefully. "My body and my mind could barely withstand it. And right now, I seem to be _seeing_ more than I ever have. Seeing things in my dreams that shouldn't be possible. It's bad enough that I'm currently wearing a blindfold, which seems to inhibit sensation enough to keep it from overwhelming me." He breathed out an approximation of a mirthless laugh, but Georgie was only cold and numb, as she listened. "It would appear that you... sharpened my vision, somewhat."

Georgie tried to wrap her head around that. It proved more than a little difficult, when she hardly even understood where these distinctions and nuances had come from. " _What?_ " she asked. "How?"

"That," Jon said, "I don't know." He said it a little bit weary, a little bit curious, until his voice became grave. "But I would advise against digging much deeper into what you can do in your dreams, if you want to avoid my fate."

It wasn't said unkindly, but it wasn't fair. "I wasn't _trying_ to get cozy with the End," Georgie said, insistent, hot. "I was just trying to help."

It sounded unbearably childish, as soon as it left her mouth. Like she'd known what would happen if she put her fingers to a hot stove top and gone forward with it anyway, thinking herself insulated. But all Jon said was, "These things have a way of... twisting intention." He sighed again, a rattling, haunted thing. "I'm sorry this is happening to you."

Georgie moved, then, like the restless current had found its way into her skin. She began picking up every stray sock and pen and putting them back in their assigned place, because Melanie needed things neat and organized, without her sight, and things tended towards the opposite, whenever evening rolled around and Georgie grew increasingly preoccupied. This had taken over so much of her life already, far too quickly.

She tossed some clothes into a pile for later washing and asked, "How do I get it to stop?" Like Jon would know, like his dread knowledge would extend that far. Like Georgie didn't already know the answer, relayed to her by Melanie.

"I don't know," Jon said, apologetic. "But Melanie managed, so... we just have to look for it. And..." he stumbled over the words, "even if we don't find anything, my predecessor managed to... to walk a fine line without ever _becoming_ something else, not fully." Even as his spoke, Jon's voice was dubious. "So there's precedent, at least."

Oh, there was definitely a wealth of things that Jon was not telling her, there. "Yeah," Georgie said, frustrated, "and she _died_. That's not good enough." She heaved a great sigh, tossing another sock. "For god's sake, Jon, I can't keep dragging Melanie into this either."

She stopped, then, in the manner of slamming into a wall. The impact rang in the hollow parts under her skull, as it occurred to her that she was, potentially, a danger to Melanie. That her plans to keep the Institute away from Melanie had been compromised by _her_ and would remain so, as long as this continued.

She got the sense that Jon knew where her thoughts went. "Isn't that her decision to make?"

"Yeah, but she's..." Georgie stopped, as she blinked, saw the room, the blood, like fleeting afterimages of thought. She wondered if it would one day occupy her waking sight, the way it did her dreams.

And to think, she loved this stuff, normally, when it was safely behind a glass wall of pretend, of happening to strangers.

In the silence, Jon's hoarse voice was ringing. "What?"

Melanie was important, Georgie thought. More vulnerable, now. Teetering a little too close to a dangerous pursuit of knowledge once more, with a fresh knife's wound of guilt cut open, no matter how fresh the cuts to her eyes were. "I'm not losing anyone else to this," Georgie said, a fierce edge to it. She wouldn't. She couldn't. "It was bad enough the first two times."

Jon's voice rasped as it left him. It came with a cold edge that Georgie didn't expect. "I'm right here."

"Are you?" Georgie asked, before she could think better of it.

Jon's breath hitched in her ear, and Georgie tried to think of something to say to amend it, to walk back the uncomfortable twist of her gut at the sound. But before she could figure it out, Jon said, "Yes," quiet and firm. Holding ground, instead of withdrawing. "I am."

Jesus. She actually hadn't called with the intention of putting him on the defensive, Georgie reminded herself. She sat in it for a moment, working her jaw, her thoughts.

"Sorry," Georgie said finally, quietly. She'd wanted to stop seeing that room, and wasn't it just ironic now, that she had? That she still thought about it, even though she was no longer bound to it in her dreams? It wasn't the only cold and clinical room she'd seen him unresponsive in. "It... felt like it was my fault, and it was awful. Like I should have been able to do something to help, before you--"

Like every ugly thing that she'd managed to climb past was only just around the corner, every night. She felt the sting of loss still, even though Jon was there across the line, a steady in and out of ragged breath in her ear. And she thought about how awful it would be, if all that she saw, all that she felt in her dreams found its way down her throat, and if Melanie's voice carried that same loss in answer.

Georgie took a trembling breath. She'd wanted it to be his fault, so that it would stop being hers. Or... no. Not that.

So that it wouldn't be no one's fault at all, because that-- that was worse, somehow. That meant something senseless. Chaotic. Uncontrollable.

"It wasn't your fault, Georgie," Jon said, with no hesitation, and maybe that wasn't really the point she was getting at after all, but the earnestness in his voice made her heart twinge. "I shouldn't have pulled you into it in... the first place." He seemed to realize what he'd said, as the last few words ground out rather haltingly and only because he didn't want to leave the sentence hanging. Georgie could almost hear the wince behind it.

"And it was _my_ decision to make!" Georgie said, throwing her hands up at nothing. She dropped them with a scoff. "Now we're going in stupid circles."

The room was as clean as it could be. She hadn't lapsed _that_ much. Georgie's gaze moved from floor to bed to closet to window, restless and seeking for something else that she could do to bring order to her space, as Jon's breath rattled hesitant in her ear.

"You've, uh," Georgie said, crossing the room to open the curtains and pitching her voice a little louder, "Melanie mentioned... your friend, Martin? You've got him there?" The room flooded with the growing light of morning, and she thought that at least one thread of uncertainty within her could relax, somewhat, if she knew that someone was there, when she couldn't be. Someone who cared enough, she was reasonably certain. Who held enough of Jon's attention, from the evidence she had.

The coarse edges of Jon's voice did nothing to hide the sudden glow within. "Yes."

And Georgie turned and arched her brows at the phone. "You're _dating?_ "

The hint of a laugh crept into Jon's voice. "Am I that obvious?"

"You've never been anything but," Georgie said, and she stopped in the middle of the room and placed her hands on her hips and nodded her relief at the phone, even though there was no one to see it. Even though it felt strange, like something she should have known already. Like it opened a gulf of unknown things, even wider than before. "And, um... good."

Something rustled on the other end, like the shifting of a chair. "Don't push Melanie away just because something's happening to you," Jon said, pointedly. "Or do I have to give you the lecture?"

"I think I could sue you for plagiarism, actually," Georgie said, casting her eyes about the room for anything else that needed adjusting, "if you tried."

A soft chuckle came across the line, though it faded away, into a few more seconds of what seemed like inevitable hesitant silence, these days. Jon cleared his throat. "And... we're here too, if you need," he added.

The _we_ , at least, was good to hear. The rest might have gnawed away at something within her, because Georgie liked to think of herself as self-aware, and so she had to let it gnaw. Had to wonder what was coming next. If she would soon reach a point where she would have written herself off.

Her instinct was to buck against it. For all that Jon's earlier mention of his predecessor was grim, and probably more so than Jon was letting on, Georgie clung to it, because it was a sight better than anything that Oliver had said. She clung to the knowledge that Melanie had found a way, even if it had come at a great cost. This didn't have to be all-consuming, Georgie thought, even as something continue to gnaw within her, refusing to settle. Even now, talking to Jon felt almost normal, almost alright, even though he was... well.

She didn't really know, did she?

At last, Georgie gave up trying to bring order to an already neat room and made herself settle down on the bed, even though her fingers twitched with it. It was under her skin already, Georgie thought, the restless movement of the current. But what did it carry with it? Easier to untangle, if she knew more, and she couldn't just leave the burden of figuring that out on Melanie's shoulders. "If you're up for it," Georgie said, "I'd... like to hear about what's been going on. From you."

It took Jon a moment to answer. "Are you sure?" His voice grew a little more pointed again, gently so. "My throat's a bit sore."

An out, and a rather gracious one, at that. He wasn't often so smooth. "Pop a lozenge," Georgie said, "and give me the short version, then."

Jon let loose a quiet huff. "Alright," he said, and Georgie listened.

* * *

Jon hadn't taken the blindfold off, by the time he and Georgie hung up, by the time Martin came barreling back into the room like he'd only been waiting. Something in the muscles of Jon's arms strained to rip the scarf away, sang urgently of the danger that came with not seeing. With all that he could miss, all that could sneak up on him. With what he could gain, if he looked. He did his best to ignore it, because for all that his mouth practically watered at the thought of what could come flooding through uninhibited, the memory of pain kept him still.

His burned hand kept that memory far too fresh, beneath the bandages, no matter how much care he tried to take with it. The scar on his left shoulder didn't bleed anymore, but it hadn't faded either. Everything else hurt too, at his scars, in his throat, threads of discomfort winding through him like they were poised to pull taut at any moment. What kind of advanced warning could the scars even provide, when hurt had become near constant? 

He may have been dangerously comfortable with what strained to fill his mind, but his body, inconvenient and wracked with discomfort as it was, weighed him down like a heavy stone and kept him from floating away.

"I'm so sorry, Jon," Martin's voice said as he entered the hotel room, like he knew exactly when the phone had been set aside. Basira had left to let Jon talk with Georgie alone, and perhaps Jon should have been more startled, when someone came hurrying in through the door, when he couldn't see who or what it was. But he wasn't startled. He knew, even before the door opened.

"For what?" Jon asked, swallowing hard, shifting the chair to face in the direction of the door, simply because it gave him a small distraction. The bags in Martin's hands rustled, and Jon counted their contents idly, automatically, in his thoughts, because it was a small and safe kind of knowing. A distraction.

There was a thump, as Martin set the bags down. "I just... left!" he said, like there was something heinous in the words.

"And?" Jon asked. Footsteps padded on the carpet and made their way over to the table where Jon now sat, because the chair was situated in a patch of sunlight, and he'd wondered if it might feel better, to let that warmth soak into him. It didn't really help any aches, but he hadn't wanted to move, once there. He knew that Martin was frowning at him, as footsteps crossed the room. "You were clearly upset. There's nothing wrong with needing to get away for a bit." Jon's uninjured hand curled in on itself, and it itched fiercely, with a dreamlike memory of warping skin. "I didn't... I didn't _know_ that, I... intuited it."

Carpet and clothes rustled, and Jon knew that Martin had knelt down before him. "I know," Martin said, soft with certainty. "And... I know." It was a little less convinced, the second time around, but something warm still rested within the words.

"Are you alright?" Jon asked, after clearing his sore throat.

Martin choked on other words that didn't quite make it out of his mouth, and Jon didn't look at them. "Yeah," Martin managed. "Yeah, I think so. It just... reminded me. Of the cabin." And Jon swallowed again, as his burned hand throbbed, as the memory of crackling fire whispered in his ears. But such sensations were banished to a back corner of his mind, when Martin took Jon's good hand in his own. There were more words seeking exit, that Martin only just managed to contain. "And... you? Are you okay?"

Jon nodded, not trusting himself to speak for a moment. He wouldn't look. He _wouldn't_. He reminded himself of that, even though the pressure behind his itchy eyes left him feeling water-clogged, even though a pit rested within his stomach, hollow and full both, even though the sense of Martin's fear sparked at the tip of his tongue. Jon pulled back, instead, and knew only that Martin was giving him a deeply upset look, of a kind that usually preceded arguing. "I'm _fine_ , Martin. Basira was here, and I... talked to Georgie."

"Somehow," Martin said, "those aren't the most reassuring things in the world." But his thumb on the back of Jon's hand was gentle, and the itching in Jon's palm, in his scars, was less unbearable, when faced with that. Martin's voice grew carefully neutral. "How did it go?"

"Good," Jon said. There were more mundane things in Martin's head that Jon wondered about, like how Martin was clearly not enthused about the topic. It was there for the taking. It would be all too easy, and Jon wanted to know, wanted to see. But he took a breath and thought about how much he meant his answer. How much better he felt, to have had an honest conversation with Georgie. And the look in her eyes in dreams past, recalled like a hazy shadow. "I'm okay, Martin. Really."

Martin's hand tightened just a bit around Jon's. "That doesn't actually make me feel better," he said, with a controlled kind of frustration. "No one is just... _okay_ after something like that! After everything!"

Which was a fair point, even if Jon was feeling rather... strange. Terrible all over, and yet not so bad. "Alright," he said. "I'm... overwhelmed. It has something to do with what changed in my dreams-- in _our_ dreams now, I suppose. I'm seeing more and more, and struggling to parse through everything in my head, everything that I feel, physically. Struggling to... ignore what knowledge I know is within reach." He had to think about it now, very consciously, very deliberately. It was the kind of thing that would grow exhausting all too fast, when he was already exhausted. And yet, how tired was he, really? "And... I'm not sure if I mind."

"Oh," Martin said, and then: " _Oh."_

"Oh," Jon echoed, trying for light and landing on apprehensive. But Martin's hand didn't loosen its grip. Didn't become any less fierce in its clinging, even though significantly less of Jon was bothered, by how little he was bothered. "But if it makes you feel any better, I'm rather dreading going back to sleep tonight."

"Nope," Martin said. "That doesn't make me feel better either! You can't just not sleep, Jon."

"I never said I wouldn't," Jon said, only a little bit tetchy.

"Well, your track record? Not great." But Martin's voice grew smaller, his hold on Jon more delicate, like there was something breakable in his grip. "But... I don't want to ask you to sleep if it's going to hurt."

Jon squeezed Martin's hand in turn, trying to banish the delicacy and regain the clinginess of a few moments ago. "We don't know if it will. And you aren't asking. As far as I can tell, my body still needs rest, so it'll be the one demanding that of me in due time."

Martin sighed, but he responded to Jon's hints and caught up Jon's uninjured hand between both of his own, this time. He'd held on tight in the dream too, Jon remembered. Why had Jon been able to see him there, when he never had before? "That doesn't seem fair," Martin said. "If you're going to _change_ , then you should at least get some perks, you know?"

"If only," Jon muttered. So far, the _perks_ amounted to a revolving door of unpleasant experiences and powers that he couldn't quite master in the ways he wanted to.

Something else was brewing in Martin's head, caught by the direction in which the conversation had turned, and Jon didn't say anything further. He focused on the feel of Martin's hands around his, on every curve of fingers, instead of the branching paths of Martin's thoughts. He thought very deliberately about anything else at all, thought about the sore aching in his throat and imagined that it caught any curiosity at the door, until Martin pulled away.

The brush of Martin's lips against Jon's hand before he went was thoroughly distracting, too, though only in the moment. Jon reached for the nearby tape recorder, as Martin started rummaging through the bags he'd brought.

"I think Helen needs help," Martin said.

Jon's hand stilled around the plastic. He'd been expecting something else entirely, like Martin asking what had occurred last night or even offering some tidbit of knowing that he'd picked up, not... "You saw her again?" Jon asked, uneasy as he remembered the look in Helen's mismatched eyes a few days ago. "What, did she spin you some particularly convincing story?"

"I'm serious, Jon." Martin's voice was harder than expected, too, and the rustling stopped. Like he'd paused to turn around and frown at Jon. " _Don't_ do your whole dismissive skeptic thing." But the edges bled out of Martin's voice quickly. "I, um... I may have accidentally... compelled her."

"What?" Jon asked, alarmed. Not because that was anything other than expected, but because the two times he'd tried could have gone much worse for him, where Helen's potential sharpness was concerned. How much had she let her guard down, for anyone to get that far? It was almost enough for Jon to rip the blindfold off to check, for him to let knowing flood into his thoughts, but he kept himself from doing either. "Did she--?"

Martin cut in at once. "She was upset, but... she didn't hurt me. I... think she wanted to? But she didn't."

Jon scowled, something protective surging through him and cutting through the water-clogged roaring, the white noise of knowing and wanting to know, somewhere between his ears. But Martin kept going, not offering any room to respond.

"Jon, don't," Martin said. "You told me that you want to... to take things out of my head." Jon deflated at once, as the white noise came rushing back in, and he had to swallow and trace his fingers over the ridges of the tape recorder, over and over again. "And I trust you to resist that as best you can. Why is this different?" Martin drew in a deep, unsteady breath, before Jon could lay out a laundry list in response. "It's just... something she said. I can't turn my back on it."

Curiosity kept stirring, building, because something about the previous incident with Helen hadn't been right. Jon hadn't liked how it felt, to have Slaughter-tinged words dripping from his mouth, even though it had felt good, even though the words had rattled with conviction. But their shape had been wrong, like they weren't quite meant to fit between his teeth. "What was it?"

"If you want to know, ask her yourself," Martin said, and a hint of something like humor returned to his voice, when Jon frowned at him. More rustling followed, like he was depositing his haul into more appropriate homes. "The normal way. I shouldn't have asked the way I did. I didn't mean to, but I'm not going to share what it was."

Jon sighed. He sat there and traced the recorder with one hand, and he focused on the twinging in the other, and bit by bit, the urge to look anyway was shoved and boxed into acceptably mundane dimensions. By the time it was bearable and fixed upon knowing the exact amount of time that Martin had lingered outside the room waiting for Jon to finish his call, something had clearly changed in Martin's demeanor. Something dragging in his feet, as he finished puttering around the bags, as his footsteps returned across the room.

"And Daisy said that you, um... talked about me?" Martin said, coming to stand before Jon. He didn't kneel this time, but his hand brushed against Jon's shoulder. "To her?"

Again, it wasn't at all what Jon had been expecting, but this topic was slightly less fraught. Jon's hand came up to join Martin's, and he couldn't keep the teasing out of his voice. "Did she now?"

"Look, I'm asking hard things the normal way," Martin said, just shy of embarrassed, and he was a solid weight, against which Jon could tug and pull himself to his feet. He wasn't too keen to leave the sunlight, but Martin's presence more than made up for it. "And I'm... curious." Martin's voice grew strained, then. "I know that I wasn't there, and the way I acted towards you wasn't... wasn't great, and--"

Jon moved in, pressing a little closer, because if he couldn't see at the moment, then he wanted to feel. "Stop," he said, fond and melancholy all at once. He didn't know how long Martin would feel guilty about it, especially not now, with hindsight in place, but Jon didn't want that. "None of that."

"Fine," Martin sighed. "But I want to know what you said." He was ever so careful around Jon's injured hand, and more so than usual today, as he adjusted their positions so as to come nowhere close to brushing against it -- more guilt that wasn't necessary. But Martin was _curious_ and _wanted to know_ and had compulsion slipping out of his mouth, and he didn't want Jon to blame himself for that, and at the end of the day, such a thing was easier said than done. "Got to make sure you weren't gossiping behind my back or anything like that."

And if Jon leaned in and whispered something in Martin's ear that made him splutter and turn a few degrees more red, well... it was no one's business but their own.

* * *

Melanie didn't miss the tape recorders. That would have been absurd. But at least they'd always had a straightforward simplicity to them, which was more than could be said about the average audio software, even before she'd relied on it this much. These things were always hit or miss, a cost-benefit analysis of what features were worth what irritants, when producing anything, and that went double when you needed the extra steps that came with not being able to see.

It would have been a lot easier, if Melanie had only wanted to record her voice, but she wanted substantial editing capacity, too. She missed that, more than a bit.

She hadn't wanted to disturb Georgie's setup in the studio, hadn't wanted to bring this sort of thing into that kind of sanctuary, so she'd fixed herself up at the kitchen table and was in the process of recording Georgie's notes and her own thoughts into her phone. She really should have put some of Georgie's observations side-by-side with her own, instead of chunking them one after the other. It made for better research, so she'd have to go back and splice those bits together on her laptop, afterwards. Which was easier said than done, when she needed an editing program that would easily allow itself to be dictated to her while also working in more or less the exact manner that she wanted it to. She had a couple of options, and she'd settled on none of them.

Well... at least she would be able to do so, even if it was a pain. Tape recorders had nothing on that.

"And... I guess there's been something weird about them since," Melanie said, and she pretended that she was talking to the Admiral, who was currently winding around her ankles. "Now that I'm sitting down and comparing things. Maybe the Eye wasn't able to _see_ me properly? Because the dreams weren't like how they were before, and now... it's weird. It's like the Eye... pulled back? I was still _there_ , in the dream, but it seemed to matter even less last night." She worked her bottom lip between her teeth. "I'm not doing a great job of explaining it, but it's just been so hard to remember details about them. Which is definitely not like it was before. I _remembered_ , before I got hired. The gist of it, anyway. It was hard not to."

She fell silent, thinking long and hard, and none of it was particularly pleasant. The Admiral meowed softly beneath the table, like he could sense her agitation. So much for the integrity of the recording, though Melanie appreciated the sentiment, and she tugged absently at the bandages around her eyes. Another week, and they'd come off for good, and she could finally say goodbye to that particular morning and nightly irritant.

Her eyes would count as healed, properly, though she would always carry the scars. One hundred percent vision loss. A real feat.

"And Georgie said that it's gotten easier to remember, lately," Melanie said finally, heart pounding with the words. "My first guess? Would be that it's easier or harder depending on how deep you are in it. And that's..." Her voice broke a bit. She had to clear her throat and steady the words. "I don't really know what it means for Georgie, yet. Right now, I'm just trying to figure out why last night was weirder than usual."

There was a soft knock against the entrance to the kitchen. "Might be easier between two of us," Georgie's voice said behind her.

"Georgie," Melanie sighed, and the warmth at her ankles departed. "My _recording_."

"Sorry," Georgie said, unrepentant, and clothing rustled, like she was bending down to pet the cat who meowed happily, somewhere near her. "Can we talk?"

Melanie resisted the urge to say something gooey like _always_ in the middle of her notes and told the phone to stop recording and then to close the voice recording app for good measure. She didn't mean to sigh, afterwards, but it slipped out of her anyway, long and tired, as she grasped at the phone and the half-finished, haphazardly put-together breakfast materials scattered atop the table, trying to make room.

"Have you been at this the whole time?" Georgie asked, and her shuffling footsteps crossed the linoleum. "Hey. Stop. I'm going to grab your hands." She did so, fingers brushing up against the back of Melanie's reaching fingers, gentle and yet firm enough to halt her movements. "Take a break, for a second," Georgie added, soft.

Melanie stilled enough that Georgie seemed satisfied. She let go and moved, and another chair scraped across the floor. Melanie put her elbows on the table and got the sense that Georgie pulled the other chair close, to face her.

"Um... I just did cereal," Melanie said, unnecessarily, as it was right there on the table for Georgie to see. "Didn't really feel like putting the effort in today, but if you want something else..."

"I'm not hungry," Georgie said, and Melanie heard a quiet thunk, felt the vibration of it against her arms. Like Georgie had put an elbow on the table too. "Not until I know what's going on with you."

Melanie stared out at where she assumed her bowl lay and heard the telltale clack of the Admiral's claws against the floor, though he didn't return to winding past her legs. What was going on? Other than the fact that her girlfriend had woken up, the closest that Melanie had ever known her to being genuinely rattled, and had started going on about something she'd done in her very much not normal dreams? "I just... I wish you would've told me, if you were going to try something in your dreams?" Melanie said. "I-- maybe I could've _helped_."

She expected one excuse or another. She didn't expect Georgie's weary, unhappy sigh. "You're right," Georgie said, low with upset. "I don't think I was thinking very clearly. Jon seems to think it wasn't _all_ me."

"Oh," Melanie said and waited for some sort of forthcoming protest to follow the idea. It didn't come. "Well. I understand that." It was the best reason she could have hoped for, at least, and a piece of evidence to file away for later wrangling. She drew in a steadying breath and kept her hands from creeping back to where she knew the phone lay.

"Still," Georgie added, a little more briskly, "I'm sorry. From now on, I-- we're going to tackle this together. You shouldn't have to sit here taking notes and putting the work in while I'm distracted or somewhere else."

It was sweet. It was well meant. Melanie pressed her lips together and summoned up the softest voice she had. "Okay," she said, and she meant it, she really did. The conviction in Georgie's voice burned bright and determined, and it made something melt, somewhere at Melanie's center. Made her want to be near it, like cold hands to campfire and moth to flame. "Thanks."

It didn't work. She didn't need to see Georgie to feel how still she went, and she could just about imagine the look that Georgie was giving her. "What's wrong?" Georgie asked, in a tone that left absolutely no room for the possibility of the answer being nothing at all.

Melanie grimaced. She wanted to pull away. Wanted to throw a wall up and deflect the question. But she'd been trying to _not_ do that, and Georgie was clearly trying now, and Melanie tugged at the edges of her bandages again. The itch was more psychosomatic than anything, she knew, even though her therapist would tell her that it didn't make it less real. A product of frustration and dwelling.

"I'm--" Melanie began, before she realized that she had no idea where she was going with it. She came to a stop, then tried again. "If something... really bad happens, what if..." She sighed. "How am I supposed to defend myself, or you or, or the Admiral, if I can't even see?"

She didn't miss the bullet and the hungry ache it had lodged in her leg. She didn't miss the anger, the fury, the way it had sent power singing through her veins. She _didn't_.

But she'd been able to fight back. Nothing had been able to hurt her, when the Flesh had come calling.

Except, of course, herself.

Georgie released a shaky breath. "Melanie..."

But Melanie wasn't done. "I know, I _know_ there are other things that I can do," she said hastily, because she could list every single argument and counter-argument if she wanted to, and it did jack shit for how she felt about it. "I know that's not what's... what's _valuable_. But... you're going through this impossible thing, and the others are out there facing the end of the world, and I'm--" Her eyes burned, and the last thing she wanted was to change the stupid bandages again, so she stopped and gulped down air and willed herself to calm. It wasn't particularly effective.

Georgie was silent for a few heavy seconds. "Dr. Rosenthal said this might happen," she said cautiously, then added, "I know you know that. It's just... I know you worked some things out with her? About what to do, if you started feeling this way?"

"She doesn't know _half_ of what's out there," Melanie muttered viciously. Even though Dr. Rosenthal had also said that feelings of resentment might grow towards any suitable target, including one's therapist. Melanie knew all of that. She _knew_ it. But knowing and doing something with that knowledge were completely different things that were damn near alien to each other, apparently.

The heavy silence came again. It stretched near to the breaking point, because Melanie didn't even know what point she was trying to get at, really, but she couldn't get comfortable with silence, even though she tried, and--

And then something rustled, like Georgie had shifted or leaned back in the chair. "... I don't know what you need," she said, and her voice had grown rather small, rather pained.

That warm, melty thing at Melanie's center glowed bright again, unwinding some of the tension within her. Georgie, who always had a suggestion or three, who always had a plan, who always wanted to _try_. Georgie, who'd spent the past week or so too upset to look directly at what was happening, except she'd also apparently decided to tussle with it firsthand, like the fearless creature she was.

Melanie estimated the correct direction and moved, and Georgie, as had become usual, guided her into place, with a little _oof_ of surprise, as Melanie abandoned her chair entirely for the option of inhabiting Georgie's.

"Just you," Melanie said into Georgie's shoulder. She was mostly in Georgie's lap now, legs astride, and it wasn't very comfortable, but she didn't care. Her bandages were a little wet, and anything in and around her eyes getting use still left them a bit sore, but she didn't care about that either. "Just... stop trying to fix things for one second, okay?"

"Okay," Georgie said softly in her ear, and she shifted in the chair, so that she could better wrap her arms around Melanie. "But if I may say so, that is a very _bold_ accusation, Miss King."

"Yeah, okay," Melanie said, with a dry chuckle. "Guilty."

They lapsed into silence, as Melanie leaned into Georgie and listened to nothing in particular, letting her pounding heart slow down, making herself exist alongside the silence. Georgie's breathing was steady and unchanging. Melanie's was shaky and uneven. But it didn't last long, before claws clacked on linoleum and a meow came loud and plaintive behind her. Something pawed at her back.

"Nuh-uh," Melanie mumbled. "Your mum is mine right now. Sorry."

Georgie laughed, then, as the Admiral meowed again, and it was the first real laugh that Melanie had heard in days, she thought. One of Georgie's hands worked its way into Melanie's hair, delicate and reassuring. Melanie had started growing it out a bit, just to see. Just because it was something she could control, more like, and the added difficulty of getting around it with the bandages made the difficulty in general seem more justified, maybe. Or maybe it just gave her something else to get frustrated with. Something easy.

"Listen," Georgie said, her hand moving from Melanie's hair to her back, "when... all of that happened, with Alex... it was hard to keep on going with my life. And even though I managed to, ever since then... sometimes it's felt like all of it was only waiting to catch up to me again." She went silent for a long moment, but Melanie could tell that she wasn't done. "Maybe I was sensing something after all," Georgie admitted. "But... no matter what happens, I am _not_ going to lay down and give up. You know why? Because I have so many things to fight for, and you, Melanie King, make up so much of that. You help just by being you. And besides, you have been working double time to try to understand this, because that's what you do, and you're good at it. If I didn't have you," Georgie's voice faltered and found itself again, "this would be so much harder."

Melanie wanted to melt right into the warm thing within her. The words weren't so different from what Melanie had been trying to tell herself, but hearing them in Georgie's voice did something to her that she hadn't quite managed to achieve yet. Funny, how all she'd had to do was ask, was break down a little bit, was let it roll through her quietly.

But Georgie went silent again afterwards, too abrupt to be anything less than suspicious, and Melanie shifted instinctively, as if to look at her, before she remembered. "What?" Melanie asked, pushing herself up anyway, a hand finding either of Georgie's shoulders.

Georgie was reluctant. Melanie could feel it, in the tension underneath her fingers.

"Come on," Melanie said, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt. "We're being emotionally honest right now, yeah?"

Georgie's breath rushed out of her, almost the laugh that Melanie wanted to hear, but the tension in her shoulders grew taut like a string pulled tight. "I'm not saying this because I think you can't handle it," she began, slow and halting. "I'm saying this because the worst thing I can imagine right now is something happening to you because of me."

"Oh god," Melanie said, before Georgie could get any further. "Are you going to give me the whole 'it's too dangerous to be together' bullshit that they do in superhero movies? For real?" She didn't think so, because Georgie wasn't the type to deliver some sappy confession and then undercut it like that, but the words twisted within her all the same, a knot pulling tight.

"No," Georgie sighed, and her hands rubbed soothingly up and down Melanie's sides, sending warm chills up Melanie's spine. "Melanie, I'm-- we just need to talk about it, okay? Because you worked so hard to get away from all of this, and I don't want you to feel like you have to... to go down with the ship."

Melanie's hands tightened on Georgie's shoulders, as dread spiked. "Do you think that's going to happen?" she asked, and she didn't mean for her voice to quaver.

It was good, she reminded herself, that Georgie wasn't quite so resistant to the idea that they actually had to sit down and figure this out, that it might not be pretty or easy. That didn't make it less terrifying to hear, from her. Like something had shifted in the fundamental underpinnings of the world, something that Melanie hadn't even known was resting as bedrock.

"I don't know," Georgie said, quiet.

There was no good answer to this kind of question, this kind of situation, full of too much uncertainty and gray. Melanie knew how much Georgie hated that, and Melanie didn't care for it herself, either. But Georgie wasn't trying to solve it. She was laying it out at Melanie's feet and admitting that she didn't know, and Melanie knew that she could offer something concrete in answer, for once. She could offer something to ease the ever-tightening knot of dread in her own stomach, too. A reminder, as much for herself as it was for Georgie.

"If it gets bad enough," Melanie said, slowly, "I-- I promise that I won't try to jump off of the ship with you or anything like that." God, this metaphor sucked, but some of the tension left Georgie's shoulders, and Melanie relaxed too. "But we're a long ways from that, and if the world ends, then nothing I did to escape will even matter, so... until then, I'm gonna do everything I can to help you and-- and stop that. Okay?"

Even if it just meant feverishly talking into her phone and coordinating information as best she could. She'd been doing that long before she was blind and long before she joined up with the Institute, anyway.

"Besides," Melanie added, "since blinding myself actually worked, then there's got to be some way to get the End's attention off of you, and... we're going to find it." Never mind that the information had been within the Institute itself. If they had to cross that bridge, well... she'd do it, if it meant protecting Georgie. Melanie's lack of eyes was supposed to help now, in some fashion. She'd keep reminding herself of that too, whenever her thoughts turned in other, more useless directions.

"Yeah," Georgie said, a little brighter and steadier, and it did Melanie good to hear that. "I'm just going to--" She pulled Melanie in, very gently, and brought their foreheads together. "Yeah." She moved to plant her lips on Melanie's forehead too, lingering for a moment. "But why don't we start with last night?"

"Great," Melanie said, determined, and she leaned back and grasped every which way at the table for her phone, trusting that Georgie would keep her steady. She was in no mood to extract herself from Georgie right now, even if her back ached with the maneuver.

The Admiral took the opening and landed between them rather painfully, and Melanie nearly tipped off of Georgie's lap in surprise, but Georgie's hands on her were firm and didn't let her fall. Georgie laughed again, even as she scolded the Admiral and kept a hold on Melanie, and Melanie managed to lay hands on her phone without knocking over her bowl.

All in all, the maneuver was pretty successful, even if the Admiral's stubborn refusal to vacate Georgie's lap meant that Melanie had to. But she got her revenge by scooping him up and nuzzling his head with kisses, and Georgie's laugh returned for the third time that day, on the heels of the second.

And as Melanie called the app open once more and Georgie put together breakfast for herself, as they settled in to talk, Melanie thought that she'd do just about anything to keep bringing that laugh back.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings in the end notes.

Jon blinked.

He'd never done that before, not here, not until last night. He blinked and was aware of blinking, and it did not reveal the fabric of the scarf, or the hotel room, or the bed, or the sleeping form of Martin. Jon looked, instinctively, because Martin was never far from his thoughts, and for a moment, the tile and the cold metal flickered, like a glitching of light just before it hit the back of his eyes. Like a veil torn away, cut down the middle with a sharp fold of will, and it might have been a darkened flat beyond, messy and lined with towels and clothes.

But pressure clawed behind Jon's eyes, sharp and grasping, and he blinked again, and the tile and the metal returned. The dissection room, home to a doctor who looked back with helpless fear, home to Georgie who looked back without. Jon blinked and was aware of blinking, and he saw the room and saw what else lay within it, through his own eyes and the eyes of the thing behind him. Like movement at the corners of his vision, too quick, too sudden, too formless for more than a passing glimpse.

 _"Would it help?"_ Martin asked, when Jon could see again, when the fabric had been pulled away and the instantaneous deluge hadn't returned. That didn't mean that it didn't hurt. _"Statements?"_

Jon could just make out the knife-thin sliver of distinction between knowledge beyond his reach and knowledge that simply didn't exist. He studied that point of divergence, and another answer came to him, sudden and settling, understanding clicking into existence like it had always been there, like the room had only just become flooded with enough light to see how a few parts of the whole came together. Like something had been removed from before Jon's eyes.

His insides went cold with it. His hand ached, sharp and hot. He'd almost forgotten, that his patron was something to be afraid of.

 _"I don't think it would matter,"_ Jon said, quiet, to Martin and to Daisy, because what was a morsel to a swelling, impossible appetite? There was a duffel bag in his arms, for some reason. Something whirred within. _"It's getting hungrier."_

Jon trembled, as the flickering sight of movement at the corners of his eyes rocked through him like a blow and ignited every ache beneath his skin. He slipped and fell, the tile beneath him a slimy kind of wet and slicked with his own blood. But the movement wasn't the helpless, unyielding desire to walk an unending path already laid out for him. It didn't hold him immobile, as he crashed to one knee. His hand caught onto something that may have been a desk, and something moved, within the skin of his palm. The alien sensation of it made his throat clench around a queasy surge of disgust, and something deeper than pain soaked deep into all that he was, but he pulled himself up, straining, shaking, of his own volition.

He stood. He was aware of who and what he was, and he was in the dissection room. Georgie wasn't there, and Jon blinked and thought he saw a flicker of elsewhere, saw the man in the lab coat like another glitching, overlaid image shuddering in and out of existence. Jon wanted to look, wanted to _see_ the blood dripping off of the tables, wanted to see the apple clutched between straining fingers. Like that would ease all that wracked his form now.

But the shadow at his back wasn't as interested in that. Wasn't sated, anymore.

 _"And what does that mean?"_ Martin asked, artificially calm.

Martin was there, in Jon's... memory? Yes, it was memory, only a few hours ago, echoing in Jon's thoughts and between the strange folds and planes of this cold gray room. Martin was worried, always worried, about Jon, about their friends, about the world. Basira was a room over, making another fruitless call. She worried about dead ends, for more reasons than practicality, for a sense of action stymied and thwarted. Daisy hovered at the fringes between Jon and Basira, restless, feeling increasingly useless without something to do, without something that could ground her thoughts for very long. Worried always about what she was capable of.

But Jon yanked his thoughts away and tried to chase the other sensation, the feeling of _right_ beneath his skull, the shiver and click of information falling into place exactly as it should and illuminating something greater. It was better, less terrible, than the prospect of digging into the fear hovering so close. But the knowledge slipped away, and Jon only just managed to pull back, before he dived too deep and invited more rolling waves of pain into his body.

He didn't need the instantaneous knowing of the Eye to draw conclusions, however. He'd been a researcher before all of this, and he could spin hypotheses without its useless assistance. Did it not _want_ him to know? Or was it something that was simply beyond even itself?

 _"The Eye is,"_ Jon said, and he tried to grasp at what it had felt like, that fleeting moment of seeing, tried to put it into words, _"hungry."_ Well, so much for that. _"More than before, and increasingly so."_ He wasn't sure how to say it, really, without letting something else seize his tongue. But he wouldn't. Not now, when he was only just barely keeping his head above water. _"It would explain some things. What I feel now. Your presence in my dreams. My... instincts, about these tapes. Perhaps even some things about our bond. It's... like it wants more."_

Jon stiffened, in memory and in dream, as the words left his mouth. As he heard the creaking of a door, the whisper of flipped pages and scuttling legs.

 _"Given the timing,"_ Jon said, clearing his throat and making his voice work as bile stained the back of his aching throat, _"this is clearly connected to the ritual, and to the dream last night."_

 _"Doesn't explain why or how, though,"_ Daisy said. Rigid, close but not too close, jaw twitching and eyes on the floor. Jon knew what she saw, couldn't help but know, when her eyes were inevitably drawn back to him. He knew how the line at his neck marked him, and he saw the shadows of thoughts passing unbidden underneath Daisy's head, and he saw the anguish that chased on their heels.

It sat like a suffocating weight on Jon's chest, because Daisy didn't want to be in the same room with him anymore, if no one else was there, and Jon couldn't fault her for that. She was trying to protect him, trying to manage it, but sometimes he felt bereft, when he remembered how it had just been the two of them, in his office or out for drinks.

 _"No,"_ Jon sighed. Why would an encounter with the End cause such a reaction? What was it about a failed ritual and its almost-success that lead here, to these results? _"The Eye certainly doesn't care to give me useful information."_

 _"Can it, though?"_ Martin asked. _"I mean, d'you know how your stomach works? Or-- your heart or your lungs? Maybe the Eye doesn't know either."_

 _"That's,"_ Jon said, and he remembered how it felt, how it seemed as if nothing at all lay beyond the grasp of his fingers, when he strained to know what had bound him and Martin together, _"very possible."_

He should have been happy about that, and a stubborn part of him was immediately gladdened at the prospect that even the Beholding couldn't lay hands on every scrap of knowledge out there. But a deeper part of him, too embedded to be comfortable, was perturbed. If his patron didn't know, then what hope did Jon have of obtaining that same information? Information that could help?

 _"So,"_ Daisy said. _"Eye's hungry. Nothing good's gonna happen if you don't feed it, and nothing good's gonna happen if you do. Just got to figure out which route is worse."_

Was there a way out of here? Jon wondered about it idly, in the midst of an empty room full of tile and cold metal, in the midst of his shakes and shivers. The Eye would not stop growing hungrier, and neither would the other powers stop. Which was the least destructive, least dangerous route? And how had it come to this? To the lesser of evils?

Jon moved again, of his own volition, but hunger squeezed so tightly in his throat that he nearly choked on it. He looked down, unbidden, and flared open the fingers of his left hand, and the eye rolled in his palm alongside the many others embedded into his skin, bleeding sluggishly at the edges. He would have gagged on the sight, had he seen it with his waking eyes, seen how his body looked here, marked even further. But Jon could move of his own volition, and this was no waking sight.

He dropped his hand and turned and saw the door behind him, the only way out of this cold, windowless room.

Thin cracks ran through the glass like rivers etched into a map, as the door creaked like a gale lay behind it. The immobility was of Jon's own volition too, warning ice creeping through his veins, freezing him in place, dulling some of the awful burn of pain. He didn't know what lay beyond that door, but he knew that it would hurt, and he knew that it was dangerous. Safer to remain here, to remain still, to hide.

 _"Here,"_ Martin said, scarf in hand, as they got ready for bed. _"Do you want me to--?"_

Jon nodded wordlessly, and Martin was careful, as he wrapped the scarf around Jon's eyes once more, as the hotel room disappeared into dim nothing. It felt stupid, fragile. Like it was ludicrous, to expect a flimsy bit of cloth to withstand an onslaught of ravenous hunger and the impossible things it bore witness to. But it had worked this morning, and Martin's hands were so very steady and warm, as he finished tying a knot behind Jon's head.

 _"Might be that nothing happens,"_ Martin said, forcibly bright, somewhere behind Jon. Like it was his turn, to hold the flickering torch of optimism. _"Could have just been the one night."_

 _"Could have been,"_ Jon echoed, rather dully. His body yearned for sleep, no matter how much he balked at the idea. If every day going forward continued to leave him this exhausted...

 _"But,"_ Martin added, and his tentative hands slipped around Jon from behind, wrapping him up in an embrace, his forehead pressed against Jon's back, _"I'm here."_

Jon shifted, enough to turn his face into Martin's hold. _"I know you are."_

The room flickered. The flat returned. The sight of it sank into Jon like a thousand gnawing teeth, and he pulled back, before he could find Martin within. It wasn't safer, wasn't the lesser of evils, to hide, to freeze. Jon knew that from experience, and he grasped onto the knowledge desperately with on-fire fingers, as lucidity drifted by.

The echoes of all-consuming agony remained fresh on memory's heels, even in this space that was not waking. Each twist of ruined skin throbbed heavy in his awareness, even here. Strange, that a piece of himself had not been enough to pull him up and out, and yet bracing himself against an onslaught now kept him from floating away.

The room flickered. Another flat cut through, windows painted over, lights smashed, knickknacks hidden behind glass cases. A body twitched on the ground, dead and yet trying to die again. And above it, two figures watched. Jon felt it like a cold inferno, swallowing him whole, until he blinked and the dissection room returned.

The door lay just ahead, and he couldn't see beyond its opaque glass with its whisper-thin cracks. He didn't know whether to remain in place or open it.

 _"You could stay, you know,"_ Jon said, despite himself.

Daisy hesitated, footsteps halfway to the door.

 _"You should,"_ Martin added. _"It's not like Basira's left the country. She's just next door."_

Making another call, during which Daisy would only linger and listen with impatience itching away underneath her skin. Jon saw the possibility flash through her mind, knew the way her eyes flicked to him. He didn't want to be wary of that, didn't want it to crawl up his spine.

 _"I'd... feel better with more people here,"_ Jon said, which wasn't quite true. He wasn't sure what he felt about Daisy. Sheer relief, that she was here at all. Apprehension, that she wasn't as free as he'd hoped. But he just missed her, in the end, even when she was here. He missed what they'd had. _"You don't have to,"_ he added, at her silence.

That seemed to decide something for Daisy, whose feet shifted against the carpet. _"Sure,"_ she said.

She was doing her best not to watch him as she tucked herself awkwardly against the wall, Jon knew, and Christ, what was he doing? Making things harder on her, because he couldn't get past the fact that he missed her? Because he couldn't stop bracing himself against the possibility of pain, and she was as much a reassuring presence as she was otherwise?

 _"Hey,"_ Daisy said, like she could glimpse his thoughts just as clearly. _"Stop that. I can see you brooding."_

 _"I'm not--"_ Jon protested, but Martin snorted at the same time, and Jon sighed. _"My face is covered. I doubt it."_

 _"Pretty sure I could see it from space, blindfold or no,"_ Daisy said, and then her voice grew hard, grave. _"Look, I--"_ She stopped. Tried again. _"I don't want to keep scurrying around you like some little mouse. I can handle it, for a bit. I... want to help."_

In ways that didn't only involve blood, Jon knew, and he swallowed, to keep from looking closer. _"Then stay,"_ he said.

It did help. Strange, how these things were a bit less terrifying when Martin sat before him on the bed, brimming with readiness. When Daisy kept her watchful eyes anywhere but him, on the other side of the room. When Basira was just a room away, chasing down sorely needed information in the mundane way, information that couldn't yet be obtained otherwise without risking worse, without hurting and straining.

If he strained here in this room that was cold and tiled and not really a room, Jon thought, his eyes on the cracked door, he didn't know what would happen. But he couldn't freeze in place. He couldn't hide. It didn't work. The eyes staring balefully from the holes in his skin, the holes that had no eyes but bled and bled and bled, had taught him that. Nothing was going to stop what lay beyond that door, but if he was caught here, where he could hardly keep his feet steady against a floor slick with water and blood?

What kind of choice was it, then, if he couldn't stay here? How much would it hurt, if he stepped through that door?

It was Martin who tugged the scarf off, slow and gentle and ready to wrap it back around Jon's eyes, if necessary. Jon didn't mean to cling to Martin's shirt with his good hand while Martin did so. He should have been used to this, to the possibility of _hurt_ , and yet his body was so tense that his jaw ached with it. It made his other hurts worse, and no amount of telling himself to relax seemed to help.

The scarf fell away, and Martin came into focus, wide-eyed and wary, and Daisy stood as a hazy blur in the corner of Jon's eye. Jon shuddered as the scarf pooled in Martin's waiting hands, but it was reflex, not reaction.

His eyes itched, like he'd been straining them for days on end. The burn on his hand throbbed and stung. The worm scars etched a pattern of itch and soreness across his body, and aches rolled through his throat and his shoulders and the hollows in his chest. His lungs spasmed, squeezed and robbed, and his skin felt raw and cold and pulled uncomfortably taut, like it couldn't quite contain all that lay beneath it.

But the sensations came, and the sensations went, not entirely present and not entirely gone. They didn't surge through Jon all at once, unending and unceasing, and he didn't automatically look upon anything that he should not have, anything that he recoiled from and wanted desperately to delve into. He saw only Martin and the hesitant, growing hope on his face. Things shifted at the back of Jon's skull at the sight of Martin, straining and yearning, but it was nothing new, lately. Just... amplified, and he wanted so badly to know why, to understand what it was that had bound them together.

 _"Is it...?"_ Martin asked, scarf hovering ready. _"Is it okay?"_

Jon nodded, and the breath he'd been holding left him trembling and rushed. He sagged with it, into Martin's shoulder. _"It's bad,"_ he said, because there was no denying that. Like he'd sink down past his neck into the murky waters of his mind, if he didn't watch himself. _"But nothing like earlier."_

 _"Good,"_ Martin said, cradling the back of Jon's head. It was protective. Nice. Much preferable to sink into. _"That's a start."_

It was going to become exhausting. It _was_ exhausting already, and the thought of carrying on while trying to shoulder this new cascade of _something_ was nearly enough to tip Jon over into a quicksand kind of despair. Nearly, except that fingers brushed against Jon's shoulder, almost too light and cautious to be felt.

 _"Can I get you anything?"_ Daisy asked, every word tight with strain.

Jon could feel how much she wanted to linger, how much she wouldn't let herself. But the brief closeness meant more than he could say, as he lifted his head from Martin's shoulder. _"The, ah..."_ Jon said, and parsed through the echoes of Basira's nearby frustration, the stinging in his right hand, the couple a floor beneath who were sleeping in two different beds, the persistent ache in his throat, the woman with the statement sitting in the nearest church, _"the bag."_

He didn't have to specify which bag. The tapes clacked together, and the book within rested heavy, when Daisy delivered the duffel bag to him moments later. Jon didn't really know why he'd asked for it, but he held on to it, and it whirred, and he knew, then, that a fathomless hunger was growing and growing and growing.

The door opened.

Jon nearly stumbled again, at the sight of Georgie. He couldn't quite follow her movements, when shards of shuddering pain stabbed through him as the door swung open, when he couldn't quite think past the water-thick quality of dream, and she, too, moved like a glitch. At the door in one moment, halfway across the room in the next. Until she was right in front of him, poised to help him steady himself, except that she froze too, and Jon thought he saw uncertainty on her face. It was a strange look on her.

"Um," Georgie said. "I don't know if...?"

Jon finished the question by staggering into her like a drunk. It wouldn't hurt any more than anything else did, he knew, and maybe it was pathetic, the way he hung off of her in a desperate hug. But he was having trouble thinking clearly, and it had been so long since he'd seen anything other than disappointment on her face, and he had the strange thought that maybe he'd feel a little less like an unmoored buoy, the closer she was.

"Oh," Georgie said, and her arms may have tightened around him. They may not have. It was hard to tell, here, when his body was heavier and wracked with pain and yet distant and far away all at once. "Hey. You're not screaming, so that's good."

Jon's thoughts did feel a little less hazy, but it did nothing to help the aches pulsing through him, that left him with the distinct feeling that he might tremble apart at the seams. "Out loud, at least," he managed.

"Oh," Georgie said again, and she shifted, pulling away, keeping her arms at either of his elbows so that she could look him up and down. Even right in front of him, he couldn't quite get a good look at her. Like his eyes slid right off of her. But he could see the look on her face nonetheless. The way she looked at the blood, the eyes. "What do we do now, then?"

Jon's eyes -- all of them -- flicked to the door. He swallowed back nausea, at the sense of invasive shifting within his skin. "If I stay in here," he said, and the words formed from information that tumbled into place, the longer he looked between the door and the rest of the room, "I'm going to drown." He could see the shape of it, when he looked at Georgie, when he caught dizzying glimpses of himself in the corners of his eyes. Something coiling around them, rising slowly and inexorably. That thing at the edges of his vision.

Georgie looked at Jon like he was already lost, and it stung, but she didn't let go. "And?"

"And," Jon said, his eyes back on the door, straining to see what lay beyond, "if I leave, I think I still will. But it won't be as quick."

Georgie's hands moved, then, one of them wrapping around his, settling over the newly-formed eye. "Then let's go."

He didn't protest, but she had to help him through the door. Jon didn't think he could have made it on his own, and he didn't think it was really her, in the end, that carried him out. He had the inane thought that Georgie would get blood on her, the way she'd shouldered him like so, until he remembered that this was a dream.

Something pulsed around him, through him, and as they crossed the threshold, Jon's skin was as cold as death and unsettled, like it couldn't quite hold all of him in. His first instinct was to strain to see what lay beyond, because the shadow that lay always at his back was searching and hungry. He wouldn't be able to weather the refraction of its gaze if he stayed where he was, not without shuddering into pieces. But Jon feared that he might anyway, and his second instinct was to brace himself, past the threshold, expecting the onslaught.

It didn't come. But Jon's vision spun all the same, and he would have tipped over and stumbled again, had Georgie not been holding him up. It wasn't the deluge of last night, however, and Jon blinked down at ground that wasn't ground, as Georgie adjusted her hold on him.

"What do you see?" Georgie asked, her eyes shifting between him and something beyond. He could have asked her the same thing, if he remembered how to. "I think... everyone sees something different, here."

"Uh," Jon said, and though he wasn't immediately overwhelmed with sensation, as he lifted his head, he could make no sense of it. As if it still lay beyond a thick film, opaque like the glass. The door hadn't opened to a university campus. It hadn't opened to anything at all, except that he was certain that there was a ground and a horizon, that distance and direction meant something here, even if it wasn't what he was used to. As if it had cracks too, like the glass, and slivers of light slipped through, enough for him to know that he wasn't merely tumbling into a void. He shuddered at the thought. "I'm... not sure. Everything? Nothing? It's, ah..."

He tried to look more closely, at the slivers and cracks, and he choked on the words, as all that he was nearly warped under the pressure. His head, his arms, his legs, the blood dripping from them, the eyes embedded in the skin, the pain that rolled through him with each beat of a faraway heart... it felt too present, too distant, too little, too much. Like Georgie was far away instead of pressed up against him, like his body and awareness were trying to split apart at the seams.

Jon wanted to close his eyes. He didn't know how to, with so many of them, with the ravenous presence at his back trying to see as far it could into all that lay around them, and he only just managed to blink and stagger the flow.

"I need..." Jon croaked and cast his thoughts about for something, anything that wasn't the unbearable pressure around him. "How's the Admiral?"

It took Georgie a moment to adjust to the abrupt change in the direction of conversation. Jon felt her watching him, even though he couldn't quite see every part of her, couldn't quite track the path of her eyes. "Just as good as the last time you asked," Georgie said. "But I think he's going to become one with the radiator soon."

Jon didn't know why that was so steadying, but he was aware, suddenly, that they were moving, that Georgie was walking him down some path beyond his sight. "And Melanie? You seemed worried, this morning."

"She's..." Georgie was a little more hesitant, though her steps didn't falter. "She's holding it together. And I'm-- going to help her do that." She stopped walking and rolled her shoulders, where Jon had an arm draped around them, adjusting her grip again. "I'm going to tell her you asked about the cat first."

"She'd do the same," Jon said, around the lurching of awareness that came with the sudden halt. His vision settled quickly, but he didn't know what he was looking at, when his thoughts stopped spinning. Except that it trembled down past phantom blood and bones and sinew, past the confines of his awareness, except that he _wanted_ to see it. But it still lay just a step or three beyond his reach.

Jon tried to close his eyes, all of them, if only to get a few moments of rest. He couldn't. But he managed to straighten, and Georgie tentatively let go of him.

"It wants me to cross the river," Georgie said, staring at something else that Jon couldn't see. "But I'm not going to do that, and I'm not going to bring you across, either." She paused, and Jon wanted to know what her frowning gaze found, as it grew suspicious and moved. But he couldn't quite look directly at her, no matter how much he tried. "This is where... hey!" Georgie's sudden shout made Jon jump. "I know you're here!"

"I'd rather not let the Watcher feast," a quiet voice said behind them.

Georgie turned, quick and ready, and so did Jon, slower and more ungainly. He knew who the voice belonged to, even before his eyes sought the speaker out.

"But I guess a few minutes won't mean much," Oliver Banks added, like it really didn't matter to him either way.

Georgie bristled more than Jon was used to, as she glared across the space that separated them. But where Georgie, much like the surrounding not-space, was hazy and difficult to take in from most angles, Oliver was as clear as an autumn day, even if nothing around him was. He was the clearest thing here, and Jon's eyes couldn't help but snap to him and stay there.

Oliver stood on something solid -- pavement, maybe -- inasmuch as anyone could stand in this not-space that Jon couldn't quite see. And though Jon had never laid waking eyes on Oliver before, he knew that what he beheld then wasn't a sight readily apparent in daylight: pulsing black veins, darker than Oliver, that crisscrossed beneath his skin in living, whirling patterns.

"If you're just here to act like some nihilistic weirdo," Georgie said coldly, putting an arm in front of Jon, as if to emphasize her point, "you can leave."

Jon moved and brought himself level with her, curious despite himself, and relief heady, at the sight of something definite. It felt less like he was going to tip over, with a form on which his eyes could focus. "Georgie, it's alright," Jon said. "I... think I owe him some thanks."

Oliver stood there on nothing or something, with his hands in his pockets and veins embedded in his skin, and gave Jon a faint smile. It didn't reach his deep-set eyes. "Not really," Oliver said. "I did as I was asked. I don't really care to speak directly to any Archivist. At least, not to deliver a statement."

Asked, Jon thought. The Web. His vision tilted too close to spinning again, even though the crystal clear image of Oliver was a sight more steadying than anything else in this not-here. Jon found himself leaning against Georgie's shoulder without meaning to, which did nothing to put more warmth in Georgie's eyes as she glared at Oliver.

"A connection to the Eye -- to any power -- can never be completely shaken off," Oliver continued, and Jon was distantly aware of a muscle in Georgie's jaw twitching. "But it can be mitigated. I've taken the liberty of staying out of your sight, though I guess that'll be more difficult, now."

Jon had never once seen Oliver in his dreams, since he'd woken up. He'd seen the empty deck of a ship sometimes, but only at fleeting distances. "What does that mean?" Jon asked. His tongue felt too thick in his mouth to fizzle with compulsion, but perhaps something of that spilled out all the same. It felt like questions echoed here, like the not-space all around was carved out hollow and cavernous.

"You see me as I am, don't you?" Oliver said, and if he felt compelled, he didn't appear bothered by it. The veins beneath his skin pulsed never-endingly: some trailed thin and delicate through his eyes, some twisted out from the corners of his mouth, some broke into and underneath his fingernails. Jon wondered if it hurt, if it felt like the blood seeping out of his own skin, the shivers of pain embedded deeper than surface scars. "You've grown. You see more, now. I don't think I'll be able to hide from it much longer."

Georgie huffed. Jon wondered what he would see, if he was able to look at her in full. "Not with that attitude."

Despite the situation, Jon felt a smile tug at his mouth, as Oliver sighed. "You know, I would've admired you, once," Oliver said, his eyes on Georgie, something melancholy hidden between the veins obscuring half his face. "Now... I think what I'm feeling is pity." He said it slow and ponderous, like feeling was a numbed reflex, and something in Jon's stomach twisted at the sound.

"Oh, you don't get to feel anything about me," Georgie said. "You don't even know me. You're just projecting, or whatever, and that's your problem. We've got bigger problems, and unless you can tell us something _helpful_ about how to use this," she gestured at the nothing around them, which was clearly something to her, "to figure out what the hell's coming next, _you can leave_."

Oliver frowned. It wasn't the look of a man who knew what was going on. "What are you talking about?"

Jon studied him. He had little choice in the matter, because Oliver was the only clear thing here, and Jon clung to that like a dazed and drowning man. "Georgie seems to be able to sense when other powers become... agitated," Jon said. He was hoping that he could learn to do the same, here, if only to spare Georgie the need. "What can you tell us about that?"

Oliver looked between them a few times, completely mystified. Jon was so used to everyone else being a step or three ahead of him that the sight was downright alarming. "This is Terminus," Oliver said, slow like he wasn't quite sure whether to believe them or not, "and the Watcher is present, because you are," he nodded to Jon, "and because Georgie and I carry its lingering touch. But I wasn't aware that there was anything else here." His gaze settled on Jon, almost troubled. "Except for what you've brought with you, of course. All I know is that my patron is... agitated, like you said."

So it was limited, then, to Georgie and to Jon. That, Jon could almost understand, except that he couldn't wrap his head around how Georgie factored in. The space around Jon beckoned endlessly, difficult to see through, difficult see the scope and shape of, unless he let his eyes open even more. He was hungry enough for it, but he didn't want to collapse into a heap and wake up screaming again, and he swallowed the impulse. "I... was wondering if I might have looked on your patron, in an earlier dream," Jon said. "But now I'm not so sure. The experience was... terrible. Like it was far too much for my mind to handle. Do you know anything about that?"

"I'm afraid not," Oliver said, and though his voice was grave, there was something almost curious in his dark, veined eyes. "I can tell you that dream space is subjective? We're each seeing different things right now, and there's no way of determining which is more truthful or accurate. I'd be careful," he added, his gaze moving to Georgie, "about trusting what you can sense here."

Georgie folded her arms to demonstrate what she thought of it all. "I'll be the judge of that."

"You really don't know anything else?" Jon asked.

Something flickered at the edges of Oliver's mouth, something that wasn't a vein. It might have been a smile, plastered on like an old memory. "Sorry," Oliver said. "I'd tell you if I did, if that means anything."

"It does, actually," Jon said. As far as asking questions of other avatars went, at least this one didn't leave a scar, and Jon did his best to contain his disappointment. He wouldn't find answers easily. He knew that. He just... had to try. "And thank you. Regardless."

Oliver gave him a pensive look, and Jon wondered what he saw, too. A vein crept down from the edge of Oliver's mouth and towards his neck in slow, crawling centimeters. Jon blinked and thought, for a moment, that something red pulsed through it. "I don't think it's something you should be thanking me for," Oliver said.

 _"This isn't how it's supposed to go, Jon,"_ Georgie said, an echo of memory.

"I'll be the judge of that," Jon said.

Oliver stood there, hands in his pockets, feet shuffling on something that might have been pavement. He looked like he wanted to say more, like he wasn't sure how. Jon could almost taste it.

"Okay," Georgie said, taking a decisive step forward into the silence. "If you've got nothing else for us, leave."

Oliver gave them one last, long look, and when Jon blinked, he couldn't see anything definite, in the space where Oliver had been. Only the vague contours of things that couldn't be paired with name or definition, things that made his head spin, without context in which to place them.

If he looked closer, tried to know, he would be able to construct the shape of things around him. But it would hurt. Enough to break off so many pieces of him that he wasn't sure what would be left. He shied away from that, instinctive and shuddering.

"You shouldn't listen to him," Georgie said, and Jon was dimly aware that she'd grabbed him by the arm to keep him upright.

"It's..." Jon said and had to chase the form of coherent thought in circles, for a moment. "He's not the worst mentor you could ask for, you know."

"He's not my mentor!" Georgie said, and Jon couldn't see the roll of her eyes, but he heard it all the same, in the exasperation of her voice. It was almost fond, like it used to be, though not quite with the same ease. She grew serious, a moment later. "I _know_ I shouldn't automatically trust anything here. I'm not stupid."

"I never said you were," Jon said. "And I'd rather try to understand something here, than keep going into this blind." Pressure pulsed around him, within him. He wondered how restful this night's sleep would be, as he swallowed down a surge of impossible nausea, as he curled his injured hand into his side. It didn't have bandages here. Only an eye, staring out from within a swath of raw, reddened skin. "Are you feeling anything... unusual?"

Georgie sighed. "I don't know," she said, but her frustration was aimless, not directed, bouncing like a trembling vibration off of unseen contours of this not-space that Jon couldn't see. "It's _all_ unusual, Jon. I don't exactly have much context for this. Melanie's supposed to help me figure it out, but I'd have to wake up for that."

Jon settled for blinking down at the ground that wasn't ground, as that seemed to cause him the least amount of dizzy stupor. Even though it wasn't so bad to look at Georgie, even though he couldn't quite see her all the way. It wasn't so bad to talk to her, either, because nothing beneath Jon's skull strained towards her like it did everything else, these days. But Jon kept his eyes on whatever lay below. If there was a below here. "You don't have to stay," Jon said.

Georgie's eyes were on something beyond, the same something that had caught her attention earlier, avoiding him. She wasn't always able to look at things, either, and it took her several long moments to respond. "What if I go to sleep tomorrow," she said finally, slow and frowning, "and you're just... gone?"

"Then I'm probably pulling an all-nighter," Jon said, frowning in turn. Something stirred sluggish at the edges of his thoughts, at the edges of his vision. A notion, that he tried to chase. "I promise you, the Eye wants me here."

Apparently, that wasn't good enough. "Are you _sure_ about that?" Georgie demanded, giving him a sideways glare. "I mean, look at you! You can barely stand up. You said it's going to drown you." She shook her head and looked back out at what only she could see. "I _have_ to be here, fine. Whatever. But it wouldn't be the first time that you've up and disappeared on me, or-- or died, and I don't care for it, Jon. I really don't."

She was worried about that. More so than just logically coming to and expecting a probable conclusion. It was raw. Braced.

She was _worried_.

"Oh," Jon said, haphazardly pulling threads together.

His right hand hurt. It _hurt_ , and it had been hurting so much, lately. All of him hurt, and he flinched away from every possibility that it would keep stacking up, keep tipping towards worse and worse, until it was all-consuming and endless. And Georgie, who claimed to feel no fear, was worried about losing him, so much that she stayed here even when she didn't want to. She was worried about losing Melanie, so much that she considered making choices for her. Because of _hypotheticals_.

All of that was normal, easily explained away, and yet that was how these things found a foothold in. And yet something moved, in the corner of Jon's eyes. He blinked, and he could almost see it. He was braced, too, constantly as of late, waiting for something else to hurt.

"Georgie," Jon said, and he tried to look at her again. Even with all of his eyes, he couldn't quite follow the path of her gaze, out into the not-space and the not-here that he couldn't see without warping under its immense pressure. He wondered what would be reflected in her eyes, if only he could find it. "Whatever you see out here... it doesn't happen to be on fire, does it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Dream-related unreality and brief body horror.
> 
> When I tell you this fic has a simple A -> B -> C plot on paper, but I keep having to split chapters into two because I've never been concise in my life, and the word count is already novel-length because I decided "sure, ensemble is fine"... I'm having fun, though.


	22. Chapter 22

The Lichfield police station was a short walk away from the hotel, and it hadn't given Basira anything except a headache. She knew one of the analysts from uni, but he was cagey, and when faced with that, she knew better than to press too hard, let alone ask for any quick database glimpses. It wasted the better part of a morning, and she couldn't even enjoy the stroll and lunch with Daisy. Basira was aware that she was piss poor company that day, but Daisy made no mention of it. She only shadowed Basira like a bodyguard and cracked some unfunny jokes when they stopped at the nearest takeout place.

That afternoon, Basira made a few calls, and by the next morning, only one of them had been returned. It gave her something: the knowledge that at least a few of the usual suspects were as quiet and disappeared as ever, since the last time she'd checked. The problem with that was that she had no idea what was coming, in terms of fears and their servants, and so it was better to cover all bases. Except that was harder to do, with no more official foothold in, with professional relationships dried up after so long away.

She made a few more calls. One resulted in a bit of an argument that she regretted in the middle of it, and one eventually brought her quite a bit more information, of a kind she really wanted and of a kind that didn't make much sense. The call wasn't returned until after she'd woken up to screams heard through the wall, and so Basira made another call, before she committed to figuring out what to do with that information. She had to be sure.

She didn't hear anything back until the next day, in the early hours of the morning, and the voice on the other end was weary. "Hussain."

"Briggs," Basira said. Daisy lay reclined on her side of the bed, but she'd stopped pretending to thumb at her phone as she listened. "Got something for me?"

The man's nerves were palpable across the line. "Nope," Briggs said, an edge in his voice. "And you've gotta stop with this."

Basira took a breath. She stood and paced a little, restless, because she was tired of being cooped up in hotel rooms. She needed to _do_ something soon, or she would lose it. So much for a break being helpful. "I just need to confirm this one thing," Basira said. Briggs was sectioned too, and none too happy about it, but he was the least likely to clam up. Until now, apparently. "And you'll never hear from me again. How's that sound?"

Daisy's eyes followed Basira's pacing and only sometimes caught the light in odd ways, when her gaze flicked back to the phone on the coffee table.

"You need to leave this one alone," Briggs said.

Basira sighed through her teeth. Something pounded dully in her head, like a headache was only waiting to spring. "You looked into it," she snapped. She could practically taste it. He wouldn't be quite so jumpy otherwise. "I can tell. So just _tell me_ , and we can move on."

"I didn't," Briggs said. "Started to, but we've pulled out of this one. You know how it is, Hussain. Don't think we'll be looking into the Institute again, honestly."

"Yeah," Basira said, irritation running hot through her veins. He knew what she needed to know. She was sure of it, and it was only a matter of coaxing it out of him. Ordinarily, that would require a more diplomatic touch, but she was tired and frustrated, and her voice came out sharp. "That's a lie if I ever heard one."

Briggs exhaled hard across the line and said nothing. 

Basira got the sense that he was a breath away from hanging up on her. But she didn't know who else to get in touch with, if this didn't pan out. Enough doors had already been slammed in her face, enough favors already cashed, and if she kept pushing, there was always the chance that someone would start looking into her. She had to wrangle something out of Briggs, and she grasped desperately for any angle that could work, anything to pry the information out of him. "Anyone know about the embezzlement, Briggs?"

She wasn't even aware of the shape of the words until they left her. Their echo reverberated in her head as she ceased pacing and came to a halt, because she hadn't known about that, either. Until just now.

A sharp intake of breath rattled into the air. "What the fuck?"

Basira swallowed and forged on. "I don't give a shit what you do," she said, and her voice felt steadier than her thumping heart. In the corner of her eye, she observed that Daisy had sat up straight. That her eyes were locked on Basira and narrowed. "And no one's gonna hear about it from me, _if_ I leave this conversation with the information I asked for." Basira fell silent and let the words sink in, before asking again. "Who's running the Institute now?"

"No one!" Briggs said all in a rush, and Basira frowned down at the phone, cold pooling in her gut and spreading slowly to the rest of her. "It's... it's up and running, I swear. I went there. I talked to people. I... hell, I followed paper trails as far as I could. I tried everything." He let loose a harried breath. "Dunno what came over me. I just... had to know."

Basira's eyes swiveled to meet Daisy's. She knew, then, that Briggs had been sectioned after an encounter with a man who'd poured gallons of bleach into his eyes and had still been able to see, even through the vitreous dripping out. But she couldn't remember if Briggs had ever spoken about it or not, and Basira's stomach twisted tight.

"It was just... fucking weird," Briggs said. "Something was _weird_ there, and every trail dried up, okay? As far as I know, there's nobody running it anymore, and-- barely anyone even working there, but it's back in business anyway. Happy?"

Not even a little, but Basira trusted his work, at least. "Sure," she said. "Thanks. I won't call you again."

Briggs hung up then, unceremonious, and Basira remained rooted in place, staring as the phone screen eventually went dark.

"That's creepy," Daisy said finally, swinging her legs off of the bed. Basira noted, absently, how such movements were easy now, instead of labored.

"What?" Basira asked, hard and dry. "Me, or the Institute?"

Daisy stood and crossed the room, steps instinctive and careful like she was picking her away across a forest floor as quietly as possible, instead of across plush carpet. "The Institute," she said, and one of her warm hands came to rest against Basira's arm. "Think you've got some catching up to do, before you get as creepy as the rest of us."

Her voice turned up at the edges, like she was trying to lighten the mood, and her hand squeezed Basira's arm as gently as she could, which was just short of too hard. But Basira didn't take her eyes from her phone. "Did he have to know," Basira asked slowly, turning the conversation with Briggs over and over in her head, thinking back to their conversation the day before, "because I asked him to?"

Daisy's hand fell away, and she placed another contemplative hand on her hip. "Hell of a leap to make," she said, pointed. "You knew some stuff about him. S'all you can prove."

That had been inevitable, Basira supposed, especially when she hadn't exactly been resisting her own hunger for information, whether it was a product of herself or the Eye or the Hunt or some amalgamation. And maybe it had been going on in less obvious ways, up until now. But was there an end point, here? Had she done something to Briggs, in their first conversation? Was it going to eat at her, or was she just going to tuck it away and carry on?

"What're you thinking?" Daisy asked.

Basira gave herself a shake and scooped up the phone, pocketing it. "That it's more useful than horrifying," she said. Even if it was just the knowing, for now. But it was never just that, and yet, she couldn't summon up any particularly staggering depths of upset. But she could acknowledge that. She could work with it. She could accept that she'd have to surrender bits of herself and get what was coming to her, eventually. She just had to make sure it was worth something, first. "Guess that sends any notion of being a good person down the drain."

Daisy just shrugged, drifting over to the chair where she'd tossed a coat. "Does it matter?" she asked, shrugging the coat on.

Basira frowned at her.

Daisy retrieved some definitely illegal weapons from their bags and zipped the coat up around them, as she spoke. "Just been thinking lately," she said. "And I dunno. Starting to think navel-gazing is more ego than anything."

Basira continued to frown, though it was more thoughtful, this go-round. "You saying I've got a big head?"

In the right light, at the right angles, one could have almost imagined that sharp teeth flashed with Daisy's chuckle. "Yeah, and I like it," she said, though the playful edge gave way to gravity all too quickly. "But nah. Just wondering what the semantics of it are supposed to _do_." She shrugged again. "You're the one who told me dying was gonna do jack shit for anyone else. So... who's the waffling over good and bad for? Someone else? Or you?"

Daisy always had a way of cutting things down to the heart of things. It was just lately, in the past several months, that she'd turned that attention away from prey. And Basira had spent a long time waffling over the semantics of that. Finding ways to make things seem good, to her, for her. It had certainly been a useful exercise, when it came to turning a blind eye. It hadn't achieved anything like accountability, in the end. Like making sure that those who were ostensibly in her care were okay.

"Huh," Basira said.

Daisy adjusted the coat and gave Basira a once-over. "You gonna be okay?" she asked, in a way that suggested she'd abandon whatever plans she had, if Basira indicated otherwise.

Basira did not immediately offer an affirmative, like she might have, no so long ago. She considered it instead. "Yeah," she said eventually, and she meant it, for now, at least. She wasn't even surprised, really, after the changing dreams and Martin's sudden leap in apparent powers. Surprised that she hadn't noticed sooner, maybe. Would her own abilities leap forward one day, if she kept using them?

Well... whatever happened, she needed to give her findings to Jon so that they could figure out what to do next, because any plans of tracking leads down through whoever had taken over running the Institute had ground to a halt before they'd even begun. It seemed like the only way forward was through _knowing_. It seemed like it would always come down to that, and Basira could, unfortunately, live with it.

It just came down to what she did with it. And therein lay the real problem.

Daisy nodded. "Let me know if you need me," she said. "There's something I've gotta do."

"Take Martin," Basira said.

But Daisy shook her head as she turned to the door. "Better to do it alone."

"Daisy," Basira said, and her gut twisted uncomfortably again. She _wanted_ to trust Daisy. She wanted to have that unshakeable certainty again. But right now, none of them, including Daisy, even really knew what Daisy _was_. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

Daisy hesitated, at the door, and Basira could just see something tense settle into her face. Daisy looked down at the ground for a moment, her jaw working, but when she glanced back at Basira, there was nothing accusatory there. Somehow, it made Basira feel worse. "Just want to talk to someone," Daisy said, and her hand moved to the doorknob, slowly, deliberately, and turned it rattlingly halfway, before stopping.

Basira knew, then, what she meant. She didn't know if it was because she knew Daisy, or because she _knew_ things, more and more lately. It eased that uncomfortable part of her by a fraction, even as it settled heavily on her shoulders. Not because she doubted Daisy's intentions, now, but because Basira could live with that, too, if a simple talk turned into a fight. She had no doubt that Daisy could handle herself, and if it kept Daisy steady, kept that Hunter's attention off of anyone else...

"Then be careful," Basira said.

"Who are you talking to?" Daisy said, with another tight flash of a grin, and then she was gone.

Basira stared at the door for a long moment. Slowly, she brought her thoughts to order, contemplating active Institutes without apparent leadership, wondering where in the hell that rat bastard was skulking about, and trying to figure out what it meant and where it fit, that they'd been away from the Institute for over a month without any adverse affects.

Well... it wasn't something she was likely to puzzle out by herself, and so Basira left the room too, heading next door.

* * *

The edge of town gave way to countryside, and Daisy walked a good distance before slowing, hardly even aware of the late October cold. Out here, in the dewy grass and surrounded by thin trees, with mist still curling across distant fields, it was easier to think. Easier to breathe without an edge of anticipation, of bloodlust, of hunger for something always beyond reach. There was no one out here, with the roads distant and the morning still early. No one close enough for her heart to pound with restless blood.

Unless she counted the shadow that always seemed to follow in their wake.

Daisy stopped in the middle of one such field. The nearest road was still in visible distance, and any passing car would be able to see her, but she wasn't worried about it. She had a feeling that no motorist would be actually able to see anything clearly, even if they were looking. That too much warping interference would get in the way.

"So," Daisy said, stretching and cracking a shoulder, eyes scanning the horizon. "Come to fight?"

The buzzing and creaking came from behind her, because of course it did, scraping through her ears and raising the hair on the back of her neck. Daisy tensed automatically, instinct stoking the rushing of blood, but she watched the soft, curling mist in the distance, and she breathed steady and deep. She remembered how softly Jon had asked her to stay.

"Oh, I'm just here to keep an eye out," Helen said, a low vibrato against Daisy's back. "Striking out on your own is _very_ dangerous."

Daisy turned around, unhurried and unbothered. The yellow door hadn't even made a pretense of blending into its surroundings, though there was precious little room for that, out here in a wide field ringed with faraway trees and roads. The door stood out strikingly in the grass, halfway open and spilling light that hurt Daisy's eyes. "We both know I can handle it," she said, blinking.

Helen leaned against the doorframe with her arms folded lazily, her fingers as confusingly sharp and achingly indistinct as ever. "You certainly do reek like a wet dog," Helen said, and her mismatched eyes were not impressed, as she stared unblinkingly at Daisy. "That would scare anyone off."

Daisy smiled, and she let it curl into a snarl, baring her teeth. She could indulge here, a bit. She might need it, if this turned ugly. But though her hackles stayed raised, though blood pounded in her ears and her nose ached with the scent of something to _hunt_ , a fellow monster right here in front of her, ripe for attack... she didn't think it would. Daisy could master herself. She wasn't overly hungry, not yet, not with the police officers still so fresh between her teeth. "But not you."

"Why would it?" Helen asked, and she straightened, at the snarl on Daisy's face. Some distance separated them, and yet Daisy could clearly see the patterns in her eyes flash eagerly. Could feel how easy it would be to fall into them, if Daisy stared for too long. "I'm happy to indulge you," Helen said, "if you're looking to... let off some steam."

It was tempting, though, as Daisy had known it would be. Blood pulsed between her ears and sang, told her exactly how to move to rip pieces off of the creature in front of her. But Daisy kept her feet planted in the grass beneath her, and she thought of Basira's wry voice, musing on the nature of what was good and what was not. Daisy had meant it, when she said that it didn't matter. At least, it didn't matter what it was labeled, and neither did it really matter how one felt about it. The result mattered. That someone, somewhere benefitted demonstrably from it. Even if it seemed like a small thing, amid grander schemes.

"The possibility smells so sweet, doesn't it?" Helen said, deceptively soft. "Another monster to kill, and no one to see." She stepped forward, past the door, and it was difficult to see where her feet landed, if they made contact with the ground at all. It would make any tussle difficult, because where and how feet and legs moved was always an indicator of what was coming next. "A tough fight, too. A _challenge_. Nothing wrong with needing to feed, dear. Especially not if you want to stay strong enough to keep them alive."

Daisy scoffed. She let her feet remain planted, unmoving, even as Helen advanced. Daisy could taste the possibility of blood, and her insides coiled with a hunger that could not be placed in her stomach or her throat or her head, itching and yearning to strike.

But Helen wasn't like any creature she'd ever encountered, and some part of Daisy was simply _curious_ about it, too. Curious about what was different, something that even her sense of these things couldn't quite distinguish, could quite find past the distorting effect that the door gave off, except that she found it strangely familiar, when she stopped to consider it. Daisy leaned into that feeling, when Helen advanced a few more steps, when every other part of Daisy screamed at her to lunge, and curiosity held her at bay.

"Really think you'll win, huh?" Daisy asked, hardly able to hear her own voice above the rushing in her ears.

"Oh, I know I will," Helen said, and she came to a stop. If she was really, truly looking for a fight, she wouldn't have, Daisy thought. She would have made a move, in that brief moment where Daisy had wrestled with herself, had spit out some bravado to cover it up. And then Daisy could have risen to the challenge, could have dodged past and gone for the doorframe with the intent to splinter it, could have-- "You won't make it easy, though, will you?"

Daisy didn't move, and neither did Helen. The silence was near total, except for the distant rumble of vehicles, the whisper of autumn wind. "So," Daisy said at length, after breathing hard through her nose and swallowing back the resounding, metallic taste of blood on her tongue. She wondered if she'd bitten through her cheek. Sure felt like it. She didn't actually know if she could take Helen in a fight, so it was doubly best not to start one. "That the best you've got? A couple of pathetic attempts at manipulation? A crab in a bucket, clawing at everyone around you?"

Helen's eyes narrowed, not quite as mismatched. Her head pulled back, and with her hair coiled in odd and impossible patterns, it very much gave the impressed of ruffled feathers. "Weren't you a police officer?" Helen asked, scathing. "Your deductive reasoning's gotten a bit dull."

"It's just fine," Daisy said easily, because she had it in the bag already. She could see that easily, in the way that Helen twitched now. Caught off-guard and trying not to show it. "And I'm not gonna _feed_ just 'cause you want everyone to be as miserable and stuck as you are."

She only had a moment to see something dark flash through Helen's eyes, and she didn't quite see Helen move. But in the next moment, Helen towered above her, too close for comfort, too angular and disproportionate for Daisy's vision to handle without her stomach turning. But Daisy held her ground and didn't flinch, only leaned back a bit so that she could look up and meet Helen's unnerving gaze.

"Not even if it makes killing you very easy?" Helen asked, her voice layered with threat.

Daisy smiled, the snarl settling back into place. "You won't," she said, and Helen's long fingers curled at her sides, like they were preparing to strike. Ordinarily, Daisy would have considered that reason enough to act, to attack, to defend. She didn't. She had to bite at the inside of her cheek again, but she didn't. She could taste other monsters, still, in the droplets of blood in her mouth. She didn't need to add to that, just yet. "Because if you kill me, no one'll even be willing to tolerate you anymore. And tolerance is about all you've got left, isn't it?" Daisy knew she hit a nerve, then, because Helen's face was about the farthest from human that Daisy had ever seen it, for a moment. "You've already screwed it up for yourself, yeah? Kept information to yourself 'cause you're miserable and bitter?"

Helen didn't move. The total stillness was even worse. Like she could strike at any moment, and Daisy wouldn't even have any warning through body language. But Daisy took a steadying breath and didn't take her eyes from Helen's, even though looking into the patterns within made her feel like she was going to tilt off-kilter at any moment. Even though her neck was starting to stiffen, from the angle she held herself at.

"Yeah. I pay attention," Daisy said. She'd been paying very close attention to everyone around her and had asked quite a few pointed questions of Martin, too, even if gave her odd looks through it all. And it wasn't just attention and questions. Her ability to sniff things out was... heightened, she thought. Better able to make those leaps and land exactly where she needed to. "Tends to surprise people."

Helen moved, then, and Daisy almost lashed out reflexively. But Helen only pulled back, rather like retracting, and she laughed, cold and amused. It might have almost been convincingly unaffected. "I imagine it does, when they expect a slobbering monster," Helen said, her eyes rolling back nauseatingly, their facsimile of pupils disappearing. "But it doesn't matter how many victims you killed and terrorized, or how much you enjoyed it, does it? You can always count on people tripping over themselves to hold your hand and coddle you."

"You're right," Daisy said easily, and Helen blinked at her, eyes returning to normal. "So I'd be a right hypocrite if I gave a shit about whatever it is you've done." Daisy placed her hands on her hips. Her stance hadn't shifted once, and her feet remained planted against the dewy grass. Helen was much taller than her, and yet it didn't feel that way, for a moment. "I don't. Can't speak for anyone else, but I wouldn't be in any good state, if no one had reached out to me. So... that's what I'm doing."

Helen didn't -- or couldn't -- hide how off-guard she'd been caught now. It was only for a fleeting second, but she looked rather normal, like off-center bones had slotted back into place, like hair had settled into more regular coils, like eyes were even and pupiled and irised.

"I don't know what happened to you," Daisy added, softening her voice. "Probably can't even imagine it. But I bet it was bad, and if it's worth anything... doesn't bother me that you're some sentient man-eating corridor now."

It was Helen's turn to curl her mouth into a snarl, with too many teeth visible in between. The patterns in her eyes surged forth and swirled, and her sharp fingers took on bulbous contortions, as she spread her arms in a mocking shrug. "And you think that's worth something?" she asked, blistering. "You think you can just waltz in, and _reach out_ , and everything's just simple and _grand_?" Helen laughed again, a high and ringing sound at odds with the Distortion's eternal, grating hum. "As if I'd want the stench of dog on me. I'd never get it out of the carpets."

Yeah, Daisy had pretty much been expecting that. "Be as much of an arse as you want," she said, with a shrug. "It's not gonna stop me." Helen's eyes narrowed again, like she was contemplating crossing that distance and starting a fight after all. But though Daisy tensed instinctively, thought about how exactly she could rip the door off of its hinges, she kept talking, past the blood ringing in her ears, past the hunger writhing in her gut. Talking helped, she thought. "But I don't think that's gonna fly with anyone else. So, you want to help? You want them to do more than barely tolerate you? Stop acting like a prick."

Something else rolled through the Distortion's hum, rather like a growl. It trembled through the ground at Daisy's feet, through the air, scraping against her skin. "Because that's the _only_ thing that makes one a monster?" Helen asked, low and cold, and some of her long fingers curled around her door, as she glared in Daisy's direction. "Thank you, Daisy dear, but your offer is very much _not_ appreciated."

The door slammed shut with a shrieking creak, and the air stopped vibrating. Only the mist and cloying dew remained, burning away under the growing sunlight, the cold, cloudless sky deepening in color. A few cars passed in the distance, oblivious, as Daisy remained in the center of the field for a while, thinking, letting the ringing echoes of pounding blood fade from her ears before she returned to the company of others.

She'd been so thoroughly alone, beneath the crushing dirt. So much that its pressure had warped her into something else entirely. She was lucky, that it had been in a better direction, that she'd had chances at all. They were unearned, to say the least, but it wasn't about that. It was about doing something with it, and she could tear through skin and blood and bone to keep Jon and Basira and Martin safe, if she had to, no matter what it did to her. But she could do more, she thought, because she could never have crawled out of the darkness and the dirt without someone's hand there.

Daisy scuffed a foot against the dirt beneath her boots and reminded herself to notice the breeze against her face, to appreciate the wide sky, to breathe steady and deep.


End file.
